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[Ni] Ni in INFJs

The Outsider

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^That is Socionics. Not quite the same thing as MBTI.
 

Snow Turtle

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Hmmm? Your question is a bit vague. Isn't something the action of taking the item in my case?

What I mean is whether you were conscious of the specific item that he was looking for, or whether it was the association between 'something he hasn't done for along time' and smoking.

As an Si-user. I'm usually conscious of all the associations that I make so that sort of behaviour 'rapid insight without thorough analysis' is quite interesting to me.

If you were to look back on the whole thing. Do you think you could figure out how you made the link? Was it that this specific item would trigger memories/attitudes/behaviours linked with smoking in the past?

What is Ni?

It's funny. I've always felt that I've had a fairly good grasp of what Ni is, although it might be an inaccurate picture.

In my eyes, Ni is subconscious extrapolation that can be brought to the conscious if thinking about the process. I don't do this, because I like to be aware of where all my conclusions are coming from, so in that sense it appears as if I require much more certainty before making statements.
 

Virtual ghost

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When you clearly see a trend that comes from the past and it seems to lead to a disaster on a scale of next 50 years (or more)


And you "worry" about it while others are wondering what the fu** is wrong with you and/or they are convincing you that life is too random to "guess" something like this.
 

Snow Turtle

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When you clearly see a trend that comes from the past and it seem to lead to a disaster on a scale of next 50 years (or more)

Too much earth science. :steam: :cry:

On a more serious note: Isn't science all about figuring out patterns to try and predict?
 
B

brainheart

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Independence of thought might be another way to define it. You instinctively know inside yourself what you think about an issue or what you want for yourself or even what you think is right for other people (which they may find annoying). Other people want outside verification and/or approval or originally get their ideas from outside sources but Ni doesn't really see or appreciate the need for this.

This is the first thing I read on here that isn't something I do on a regular basis. It sounds like a dominant function to me; the other stuff (before it, anyway) seems fairly common place.
 

cascadeco

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I have to say I don't relate a whole lot to the 'hunch without explanation thing'/spidey sense/psychic twist of Ni as it's often described. I will admit outsiders might view the dom-Ni's thoughts as such, because the dom-Ni might be vague to begin with (because I think the nature of our thoughts can tend towards generalities and it can be hard to unravel all of the threads in our mind that led to our conclusion...or would be too time-consuming to bother trying to do so), but I don't think Ni itself is unsubstantiated.

At least...I don't view my dominant mode of being as being utterly unsubstantiated and pulling things out of thin air without any reason for it.

In a big context, I see Ni in myself as noting patterns and trends; being almost detached, almost floating in my mind, pulling lots of information - seemingly unrelated - and coming to a conclusion as a result of all of these various threads. A specific example regarding people: I'll note behaviors, body language, comments, will take said comment and extropolate from that everything else that that implies. It is more metaphorical, more abstract, more theoretical....and it's also about an ease with switching perspectives.

Ni for me is relative in nature; there are few absolutes. Much is subjective, contextual. I may not hold fast to many beliefs/values, or they don't define me, because I also think so much of ourselves is the result of choice, so I view my inner self as more fluid and elastic and changing, and I don't necessarily look favorably at a rigid inner self - I think it creates limitations and the danger of tunnel vision. I don't want to miss a perspective or not account for something.

And yes, I relate to the comment on developing thoughts/opinions through ones own chain of reasoning, just pure thought/reflection. A while back I posted some of my writings on here, and I viewed my writings as totally reasonable and 'how could it be any other way?', and people pointed out the Ni-ness of it. I think Ni might have a tendency towards stating/believing something as a given, without feeling the need to explain all of it logically - because it seems so obvious, why the need to spell it out? ;)

Sometimes/often I find myself in situations where I don't want to say something, or feel silly about pointing something out, because I think it's totally obvious. But then I've had it happen where what I think is totally obvious turns out not to be the case...because other people didn't make the connection, or something, and it appears I'm the only one who did. This has happened numerous times in work situations -- meetings, discussions, etc. I mean, not to toot my own horn or anything...but that seems to happen to me...my just finding some underlying theme or trend that ties everything together, when others are stuck looking at various details and not seeing a cohesive whole out of all of it.

(And, as with pretty much any function, I think it's difficult to pinpoint it on its own, and maybe almost impossible, as there will always be supporting cog. processes/functions that work in tandem with it. So some of what I've described I'm sure has other stuff going on as well.)
 

Tiltyred

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I just thought of one -- I had a friend who had a baby who was about 20 months, I think -- still in a crib, but able to stand up. One night I was at her house at his bedtime, and she invited me to go put him to bed with her, so I was talking and playing/joking around with him while he was in his crib and we got to "Ok, time for night night! Lie down now and go to sleep!" and he lay down and I pulled the blanket up around him, and I turned and started walking out of the room, when something told me to Stop, so I stopped, had a feeling and turned back around, and as I was turning to face him, he was finishing getting to his feet, and I was all "Aha! I caught you!" and there he was hanging onto the crib railing, drooling, just laughing and laughing.

Ni is what made me stop and then turn around in perfect coordination with his standing up.

I think Ni is also why I can have conversations with babies who can't talk yet. Because he had been telling me earlier that he fell down the stairs. His mom was out of the room when he was "telling" me this (sort of acting it out), and when she came back in, I said "Ryan said he fell down the stairs!" and she confirmed that he had (obviously was not hurt).

Also
My neighbor brings her dog over sometimes when she visits me, and I know when she has to use the bathroom before my neighbor does.
 
B

brainheart

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I just thought of one -- I had a friend who had a baby who was about 20 months, I think -- still in a crib, but able to stand up. One night I was at her house at his bedtime, and she invited me to go put him to bed with her, so I was talking and playing/joking around with him while he was in his crib and we got to "Ok, time for night night! Lie down now and go to sleep!" and he lay down and I pulled the blanket up around him, and I turned and started walking out of the room, when something told me to Stop, so I stopped, had a feeling and turned back around, and as I was turning to face him, he was finishing getting to his feet, and I was all "Aha! I caught you!" and there he was hanging onto the crib railing, drooling, just laughing and laughing.

Ni is what made me stop and then turn around in perfect coordination with his standing up.

I think Ni is also why I can have conversations with babies who can't talk yet. Because he had been telling me earlier that he fell down the stairs. His mom was out of the room when he was "telling" me this (sort of acting it out), and when she came back in, I said "Ryan said he fell down the stairs!" and she confirmed that he had (obviously was not hurt).

Also
My neighbor brings her dog over sometimes when she visits me, and I know when she has to use the bathroom before my neighbor does.

Curious... couldn't this just have to do with being really observant, picking up on subtle clues others don't necessarily notice, like, for one, "this baby seems wiggly, chances are he'll try to get out of bed again, or I see this 'I'm not ready for sleep' gleam in his eye, so maybe I should turn around?" Or... reading the baby's body language (as you say, his 'acting it out') and it seemed to be telling you that he fell? Same with the dog?

I'm not trying to play devil's advocate here, I'm just trying to see the distinctions between different functions, especially because there's things I thought were 'totally Ne' or 'totally Ni' and now I'm pretty sure that's not the case... or it is, but it's not dominant or auxiliary function Ni or Ne.
 

cascadeco

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Curious... couldn't this just have to do with being really observant, picking up on subtle clues others don't necessarily notice, like, for one, "this baby seems wiggly, chances are he'll try to get out of bed again, or I see this 'I'm not ready for sleep' gleam in his eye, so maybe I should turn around?" Or... reading the baby's body language (as you say, his 'acting it out') and it seemed to be telling you that he fell? Same with the dog?

Yep. I think the tie of Ni to pure mysticism is a poor one; like I said, I think there are probably reasons for why outsiders might attribute more mystical connotations to Ni, but it's really not the essence of Ni as a cognitive process.

(other topic, in terms of more 'new age' psychic phenomena, people like to link that sort of 'ability' to Ni, but it's not. That's something totally outside of mbti. Sure, there might be Ni-users who have these other supposed abilities as well, but it's not because they're Ni.)
 

Snow Turtle

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Curious... couldn't this just have to do with being really observant, picking up on subtle clues others don't necessarily notice, like, for one, "this baby seems wiggly, chances are he'll try to get out of bed again, or I see this 'I'm not ready for sleep' gleam in his eye, so maybe I should turn around?" Or... reading the baby's body language (as you say, his 'acting it out') and it seemed to be telling you that he fell? Same with the dog?

I'm not trying to play devil's advocate here, I'm just trying to see the distinctions between different functions, especially because there's things I thought were 'totally Ne' or 'totally Ni' and now I'm pretty sure that's not the case... or it is, but it's not dominant or auxiliary function Ni or Ne.

There's definitely a huge difference between noticing something, and doing something with the information. For me, most Ni users attempt to try seek more information from a source and this is where the whole N-stereotype of searching for implications/meanings comes from imo.
 

Tiltyred

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Curious... couldn't this just have to do with being really observant, picking up on subtle clues others don't necessarily notice, like, for one, "this baby seems wiggly, chances are he'll try to get out of bed again, or I see this 'I'm not ready for sleep' gleam in his eye, so maybe I should turn around?" Or... reading the baby's body language (as you say, his 'acting it out') and it seemed to be telling you that he fell? Same with the dog?

I'm not trying to play devil's advocate here, I'm just trying to see the distinctions between different functions, especially because there's things I thought were 'totally Ne' or 'totally Ni' and now I'm pretty sure that's not the case... or it is, but it's not dominant or auxiliary function Ni or Ne.


If you like.
 

Tiltyred

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It makes sense that it was me thinking that the baby looked wiggly and would probably get out of bed, and that my turning around was because I had observed all these visual cues?

It does make sense.

That's why I don't think it's true.

There was something balletic in the perfect coordination of our movements, some feeling of connectedness between the two of us although I could not see him that is not about thinking and noticing visual cues.

My opinion. I could be wrong.

What I'm trying to say is that in my experience and as I understand it, Ni is receiving communication from a source that does not use words, in a way that does not "make sense." Hence the "How did you know that?" and the idea that INFJs have more experiences of being psychic than other types. The examples I gave were of getting and correctly interpreting "vibes." I don't personally think that vibes are about interpreting visual cues. I'm don't think I am that observant. I think I tend to be a sensotard.
 

Oaky

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What I mean is whether you were conscious of the specific item that he was looking for, or whether it was the association between 'something he hasn't done for along time' and smoking.

As an Si-user. I'm usually conscious of all the associations that I make so that sort of behaviour 'rapid insight without thorough analysis' is quite interesting to me.

If you were to look back on the whole thing. Do you think you could figure out how you made the link? Was it that this specific item would trigger memories/attitudes/behaviours linked with smoking in the past?
I do believe it was a hunch. Just my instincts that told me and I trust it. Hunches are caused by the subconscious. To figure out why I came to a conclusion I would have to use my conscious to figure out what my subconscious figured out. I can't go around doing that all the time can I. I'd tire myself.
 

Tiltyred

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Yes, and besides, what's the point of the gift of hunches if you're just going to second guess them every time?
 

OrangeAppled

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This is Jung's description. Any Ni-doms want to comment on it?

8. Intuition

Intuition, in the introverted attitude, is directed upon the inner object, a term we might justly apply to the elements of the unconscious. For the relation of inner objects to consciousness is entirely analogous to that of outer objects, although theirs is a psychological and not a physical reality. Inner objects appear to the intuitive perception as subjective images of things, which, though not met with in external experience, really determine the contents of the unconscious, i.e. the collective unconscious, in the last resort. Naturally, in their per se character, these contents are, not accessible to experience, a quality which they have in common with the outer object. For just as outer objects correspond only relatively with our perceptions of them, so the phenomenal forms of the inner object are also relative; products of their (to us) inaccessible essence and of the peculiar nature of the intuitive function. Like sensation, intuition also has its subjective factor, which is suppressed to the farthest limit in the extraverted intuition, but which becomes the decisive factor in the intuition of the introvert. Although this intuition may receive its impetus from outer objects, it is never arrested by the external possibilities, but stays with that factor which the outer object releases within.

Whereas introverted sensation is mainly confined to the perception of particular innervation phenomena by way of the unconscious, and does not go beyond them, intuition represses this side of the subjective factor and perceives the image which has really occasioned the innervation. Supposing, for instance, a man is overtaken by a psychogenic attack of giddiness. Sensation is arrested by the peculiar character of this innervationdisturbance, perceiving all its qualities, its intensity, its transient course, the nature of its origin and disappearance [p. 506] in their every detail, without raising the smallest inquiry concerning the nature of the thing which produced the disturbance, or advancing anything as to its content. Intuition, on the other hand, receives from the sensation only the impetus to immediate activity; it peers behind the scenes, quickly perceiving the inner image that gave rise to the specific phenomenon, i.e. the attack of vertigo, in the present case. It sees the image of a tottering man pierced through the heart by an arrow. This image fascinates the intuitive activity; it is arrested by it, and seeks to explore every detail of it. It holds fast to the vision, observing with the liveliest interest how the picture changes, unfolds further, and finally fades. In this way introverted intuition perceives all the background processes of consciousness with almost the same distinctness as extraverted sensation senses outer objects. For intuition, therefore, the unconscious images attain to the dignity of things or objects. But, because intuition excludes the co-operation of sensation, it obtains either no knowledge at all or at the best a very inadequate awareness of the innervation-disturbances or of the physical effects produced by the unconscious images. Accordingly, the images appear as though detached from the subject, as though existing in themselves without relation to the person.

Consequently, in the above-mentioned example, the introverted intuitive, when affected by the giddiness, would not imagine that the perceived image might also in some way refer to himself. Naturally, to one who is rationally orientated, such a thing seems almost unthinkable, but it is none the less a fact, and I have often experienced it in my dealings with this type.

The remarkable indifference of the extraverted intuitive in respect to outer objects is shared by the introverted intuitive in relation to the inner objects. Just as the extraverted intuitive is continually scenting out new [p. 507] possibilities, which he pursues with an equal unconcern both for his own welfare and for that of others, pressing on quite heedless of human considerations, tearing down what has only just been established in his everlasting search for change, so the introverted intuitive moves from image to image, chasing after every possibility in the teeming womb of the unconscious, without establishing any connection between the phenomenon and himself. Just as the world can never become a moral problem for the man who merely senses it, so the world of images is never a moral problem to the intuitive. To the one just as much as to the other, it is an ae[]sthenic problem, a question of perception, a 'sensation'. In this way, the consciousness of his own bodily existence fades from the introverted intuitive's view, as does its effect upon others. The extraverted standpoint would say of him: 'Reality has no existence for him; he gives himself up to fruitless phantasies'. A perception of the unconscious images, produced in such inexhaustible abundance by the creative energy of life, is of course fruitless from the standpoint of immediate utility. But, since these images represent possible ways of viewing life, which in given circumstances have the power to provide a new energic potential, this function, which to the outer world is the strangest of all, is as indispensable to the total psychic economy as is the corresponding human type to the psychic life of a people. Had this type not existed, there would have been no prophets in Israel.

Introverted intuition apprehends the images which arise from the a priori, i.e. the inherited foundations of the unconscious mind. These archetypes, whose innermost nature is inaccessible to experience, represent the precipitate of psychic functioning of the whole ancestral line, i.e. the heaped-up, or pooled, experiences of organic existence in general, a million times repeated, and condensed into types. Hence, in these archetypes all experiences are [p. 508] represented which since primeval time have happened on this planet. Their archetypal distinctness is the more marked, the more frequently and intensely they have been experienced. The archetype would be -- to borrow from Kant -- the noumenon of the image which intuition perceives and, in perceiving, creates.

Since the unconscious is not just something that lies there, like a psychic caput mortuum, but is something that coexists and experiences inner transformations which are inherently related to general events, introverted intuition, through its perception of inner processes, gives certain data which may possess supreme importance for the comprehension of general occurrences: it can even foresee new possibilities in more or less clear outline, as well as the event which later actually transpires. Its prophetic prevision is to be explained from its relation to the archetypes which represent the law-determined course of all experienceable things.

9. The Introverted Intuitive Type

The peculiar nature of introverted intuition, when given the priority, also produces a peculiar type of man, viz. the mystical dreamer and seer on the one hand, or the fantastical crank and artist on the other. The latter might be regarded as the normal case, since there is a general tendency of this type to confine himself to the perceptive character of intuition. As a rule, the intuitive stops at perception; perception is his principal problem, and -- in the case of a productive artist-the shaping of perception. But the crank contents himself with the intuition by which he himself is shaped and determined. Intensification of intuition naturally often results in an extraordinary aloofness of the individual from tangible reality; he may even become a complete enigma to his own immediate circle. [p. 509]

If an artist, he reveals extraordinary, remote things in his art, which in iridescent profusion embrace both the significant and the banal, the lovely and the grotesque, the whimsical and the sublime. If not an artist, he is frequently an unappreciated genius, a great man 'gone wrong', a sort of wise simpleton, a figure for 'psychological' novels.

Although it is not altogether in the line of the introverted intuitive type to make of perception a moral problem, since a certain reinforcement of the rational functions is required for this, yet even a relatively slight differentiation of judgment would suffice to transfer intuitive perception from the purely æsthetic into the moral sphere. A variety of this type is thus produced which differs essentially from its æsthetic form, although none the less characteristic of the introverted intuitive. The moral problem comes into being when the intuitive tries to relate himself to his vision, when he is no longer satisfied with mere perception and its æsthetic shaping and estimation, but confronts the question: What does this mean for me and for the world? What emerges from this vision in the way of a duty or task, either for me or for the world? The pure intuitive who represses judgment or possesses it only under the spell of perception never meets this question fundamentally, since his only problem is the How of perception. He, therefore, finds the moral problem unintelligible, even absurd, and as far as possible forbids his thoughts to dwell upon the disconcerting vision. It is different with the morally orientated intuitive. He concerns himself with the meaning of his vision; he troubles less about its further æsthetic possibilities than about the possible moral effects which emerge from its intrinsic significance. His judgment allows him to discern, though often only darkly, that he, as a man and as a totality, is in some way inter-related with his vision, that [p. 510] it is something which cannot just be perceived but which also would fain become the life of the subject. Through this realization he feels bound to transform his vision into his own life. But, since he tends to rely exclusively upon his vision, his moral effort becomes one-sided; he makes himself and his life symbolic, adapted, it is true, to the inner and eternal meaning of events, but unadapted to the actual present-day reality. Therewith he also deprives himself of any influence upon it, because he remains unintelligible. His language is not that which is commonly spoken -- it becomes too subjective. His argument lacks convincing reason. He can only confess or pronounce. His is the 'voice of one crying in the wilderness'.

The introverted intuitive's chief repression falls upon the sensation of the object. His unconscious is characterized by this fact. For we find in his unconscious a compensatory extraverted sensation function of an archaic character. The unconscious personality may, therefore, best be described as an extraverted sensation-type of a rather low and primitive order. Impulsiveness and unrestraint are the characters of this sensation, combined with an extraordinary dependence upon the sense impression. This latter quality is a compensation to the thin upper air of the conscious attitude, giving it a certain weight, so that complete 'sublimation' is prevented. But if, through a forced exaggeration of the conscious attitude, a complete subordination to the inner perception should develop, the unconscious becomes an opposition, giving rise to compulsive sensations whose excessive dependence upon the object is in frank conflict with the conscious attitude. The form of neurosis is a compulsion-neurosis, exhibiting symptoms that are partly hypochondriacal manifestations, partly hypersensibility of the sense organs and partly compulsive ties to definite persons or other objects. [p. 511]
 

Oaky

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^ Yes, it's too long for the simple explanation of Ni the OP required.
 
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