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David Lynch

What Personality Type is David Lynch?

  • ENFP

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  • ENFJ

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  • INTP

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  • ENTP

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  • ENTJ

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  • ISFP

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  • ISFJ

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  • ESFP

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  • ESFJ

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  • ISTP

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  • ESTP

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  • ESTJ

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  • 1w9

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  • 2w1

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  • 2w3

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  • 3w4

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  • 8w7

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  • 9w8

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  • Total voters
    19

lulabelle

New member
Joined
Aug 24, 2014
Messages
255
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
he's INFP to me... strong Ne in his work. tooo much Ne absurdity for him to be an INFJ. his films are very dreamy and nebulous yet have such a specific vision and evoke very specific uncanny feelings. very quirky + exalt subjective experience. idk his work reminds me of a lot of INFP art.
 

Mal12345

Permabanned
Joined
Apr 19, 2011
Messages
14,532
MBTI Type
IxTP
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
INFP. Look at the eyes... THE EYES!!!
 

Thalassa

Permabanned
Joined
May 3, 2009
Messages
25,183
MBTI Type
ISFP
Enneagram
6w7
Instinctual Variant
sx
ISFP ...too blood, guts, sex and drugs to be an INFP. His movies have a real Se visceral impact, to the non fan I think his work can even appear to be senseless images as an excuse to play with color, guns, prostitution and the whole "noir" thing but his work is extremely rich in symbolism and truth. At first I thought INFJ but the style takes priority for him over meaning, with meaning following a close second, that he dgaf if you get or not. People who actually know a lot of Lana del Reys entire span of work sometimes compare her to Lynch, and she didn't even know who he was at first but later became a fan. I think she's also an ISFP. His eyes and moral tone are just Fi dom, doesn't necessarily make him NF. Keirseys son also types Lynch as ISFP.
 

Raffaella

bon vivant
Joined
Jan 25, 2014
Messages
945
ISFP ...too blood, guts, sex and drugs to be an INFP. His movies have a real Se visceral impact, to the non fan I think his work can even appear to be senseless images as an excuse to play with color, guns, prostitution and the whole "noir" thing but his work is extremely rich in symbolism and truth. At first I thought INFJ but the style takes priority for him over meaning, with meaning following a close second, that he dgaf if you get or not. People who actually know a lot of Lana del Reys entire span of work sometimes compare her to Lynch, and she didn't even know who he was at first but later became a fan. I think she's also an ISFP. His eyes and moral tone are just Fi dom, doesn't necessarily make him NF. Keirseys son also types Lynch as ISFP.

I'm glad someone else notices he's not on the Ne/Si axis, that's why I couldn't see him as INFP. I can actually buy ISFP, it makes more sense (to me) to type him as INFJ or ISFP despite the differences between them.

IMO, Lana is the poster child for ISFPs.
 

Pionart

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 17, 2014
Messages
4,039
MBTI Type
NiFe
I swear David Lynch is, like, the Bartender on the Cleveland show o_O
 

capslock

New member
Joined
Mar 14, 2010
Messages
94
MBTI Type
INFP
I love his work (especially on Twin Peaks and the Straight Story & voice acting in Cleveland Show, of course)
and remember starting thread about his type a long time ago.

Also, remember seeing an interesting talk he gave, at some university,
on transcendental meditation, that was pretty awesome & hilarious.

I have no idea what type he is though, I'm terrible at typing people.
 

Zeego

Mind Wanderer
Joined
Apr 15, 2016
Messages
390
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
I don't think that "blood, guts, sex and drugs" in an artist's work, as [MENTION=6877]Marmotini[/MENTION] said, necessarily means that they are on the Se/Ni axis. If anything, Ne would actually encourage having these elements in an artistic work because it's partially about exploring the unknown and controversial, since it's the opposite of Si.

However, I do think David Lynch is an INFJ. Not because of the contents of his films themselves, but because of what he's said about transcendental meditation in his lectures and in his book Catching the Big Fish.
 

eve987

New member
Joined
Sep 6, 2017
Messages
4
MBTI Type
INFJ
This is an old thread but I'm reviving it!

Still processing the finale of Twin Peaks, I started watching interviews with David Lynch on YouTube. Looking at his work – the surrealism, the daring, I assumed he was an INFP like so many amazing artists. However, as I started to listen to him speak about the *process* through which he arrives at is art, it dawned on me that he MUST be in an INFJ. On a gut level, it doesn't make sense and yet it is the only explanation. He is both exactly like and unlike any INFJ I know.

My understanding of the theory of cognitive functions is that every type can be most self-actualized when they use their dominant and secondary functions, but that too often types fall into a "loop" where they rely on their dominant and tertiary. If Lynch is an INFJ, his functions are Ni/Fe/Ti/Se.

Ni – This dude is WAAAAAAY abstract. He talks about us all being icebergs with these massive hidden depths (I think that actually isn't most people but is all INFJs). His ideas aren't really informed by any specific references he can name but rather come to him out of the ether. He doesn't create by making Ne-type connections between seemingly unconnected, external things. Rather his ideas are Ni. They emerge from some unknowable place.

Fe – Whenever he's in an interview with other people (especially his actors), he tries to make them comfortable (e.g., places hand on shoulder). He is definitely very aware of how other people are feeling. His work is also deeply, deeply emotional, human centered, and moral (not in abstract legal/systemic sense, but in abstract feeling sense).

Ti – I find this really interesting. David constantly talks about how he doesn't want to talk about his work. That it would destroy it to analyze it. I think so many INFJs end up getting stuck in that Ni-Ti loop, but David is basically saying, if I indulge my Ti, I will kill the Ni-Fe process that is my genius. And so I meditate (turn off Ti completely) in order to get my ideas.

Se – ??

I might be wrong but what interests me about this is that when I watch David Lynch, I see someone who has self-actualized (gone full Ni/Fe) and has found a medium (film) to directly communicate the completely inarticulate depths of his Ni without having bring them down to earth with simple words. I aspire to be that creative, that Ti-free!

Lastly, he is 100% J. He talks constantly about things needing to be "correct." About rehearsing over and over with his actors until they understand his idea. About how delicate a film is, how easy it is for music to be too loud or too soft, to slip out of the experience because a single element is off. Everything he does is perfectionistic, deliberate, extremely controlled. How does he know something is correct? He could never in a million years tell you; it just is. (Ni!!)
 
Last edited:

eve987

New member
Joined
Sep 6, 2017
Messages
4
MBTI Type
INFJ
This is a really great piece!!! Thank you!

Ni

The director is nothing if not attentive; he actually closed his eyes at several points in order to focus as completely as he could on his answers. At times, he would knead his hands together as he spoke, eyes closed, focused inward. That intensity seemed appropriate, given that he spoke about how his work is often inspired by images that float up from the deepest parts of his subconscious. Lynch doesn’t take credit for the existence of the strange moods and disjunctive tableaus that fill his work; he says he just channels what he sees, and puts that out into the world.

"...an idea holds everything, really, if you analyze it. It comes in a burst. An idea comes in, and if you stop and think about it, it has sound, it has image, it has a mood, and it even has an indication of wardrobe, and knowing a character, or the way they speak, the words they say. A whole bunch of things can come in an instant."

"That’s what I always say, it’s like fish. You don’t make the fish, you catch the fish. It’s like, that idea existed before you caught it, so in some strange way, we human beings, we don’t really do anything. We just translate ideas. The ideas come along and you just translate them."


Well, I believe in intuition. I believe in optimism, and energy, and a kind of a Boy Scout attitude, and Cooper’s got all those things. I think a real good detective has those things. He’s got more intuition than more detectives, though.

General J-ness:

One more unequivocal thing: Lynch hates the idea of spoiling the experience of watching one of his creations.

"You just keep working until it feels correct to you."

For me, I wanted to be involved with all the writing and I wanted to direct all of them. Not that other directors didn’t do a fine job. But, it’s passing through different people, it’s just natural that they would end up with [something] different than what I would do. That’s what I learned.
 

eve987

New member
Joined
Sep 6, 2017
Messages
4
MBTI Type
INFJ
"The introverted variety is more difficult because he has intuitions as to the subjective factor, namely, the inner world, and that is very difficult to understand because what he sees are most uncommon things. And he doesn't like to talk of them –blessif he's not a fool because he would spoil his own game by telling what he sees because people won't understand it."

 

VILLANELLE

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Aug 8, 2016
Messages
731
MBTI Type
ESFP
Enneagram
261
Instinctual Variant
so/sp
I get an INFJ vibe from him, maybe INFP.

I've seen chunks of Twin Peaks (first, some of second, and the finale of second, and then a clip of the third as well as a few episodes. Especially the finale of that one.) and it broke me. It has a special place in my heart, his work is very affecting, IMO.

 

burningranger

Ambience seeker
Joined
Aug 3, 2017
Messages
248
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
9w8
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
This is a really great piece!!! Thank you!

Ni

The director is nothing if not attentive; he actually closed his eyes at several points in order to focus as completely as he could on his answers. At times, he would knead his hands together as he spoke, eyes closed, focused inward. That intensity seemed appropriate, given that he spoke about how his work is often inspired by images that float up from the deepest parts of his subconscious. Lynch doesn’t take credit for the existence of the strange moods and disjunctive tableaus that fill his work; he says he just channels what he sees, and puts that out into the world.

"...an idea holds everything, really, if you analyze it. It comes in a burst. An idea comes in, and if you stop and think about it, it has sound, it has image, it has a mood, and it even has an indication of wardrobe, and knowing a character, or the way they speak, the words they say. A whole bunch of things can come in an instant."

"That’s what I always say, it’s like fish. You don’t make the fish, you catch the fish. It’s like, that idea existed before you caught it, so in some strange way, we human beings, we don’t really do anything. We just translate ideas. The ideas come along and you just translate them."


Well, I believe in intuition. I believe in optimism, and energy, and a kind of a Boy Scout attitude, and Cooper’s got all those things. I think a real good detective has those things. He’s got more intuition than more detectives, though.

General J-ness:

One more unequivocal thing: Lynch hates the idea of spoiling the experience of watching one of his creations.

"You just keep working until it feels correct to you."

For me, I wanted to be involved with all the writing and I wanted to direct all of them. Not that other directors didn’t do a fine job. But, it’s passing through different people, it’s just natural that they would end up with [something] different than what I would do. That’s what I learned.

None of things here described I would say are INFJ necessarilly. I love Lynch specially because he is into meditation. All of the things he describes simply sound like something someone who meditates regularly and intrigates it fully into his life would say. "You just keep working until it feels correct to you" and the fish analogy is just really the process everyone goes through if they were to "listen" to catch ideas. Having done the exact same thing (even for filmmaking) nothing of what he says seems type related at all.

Which is not to say he isn't an INFJ. He probably is. But the thing with meditation is it starts very quickly integrating you...so typology starts becoming very tricky past a certain point. When you start entering the realm of the soul....you tap into all kinds of aspects of yourself....I can credit meditation with having given me Ni experiences I never had. Sort of like archetypal discoveries. It didn't stick because I was in a different mindframe..then, when I did it very intensily and regularly...but our ego really is just the tip of the iceberg that is us.

That video of Jung is also very weird. Someone titled it introverted intuiton but I don't think he was talking strictly of Ni. With the example of the woman with the snake...that does seem like a Ni thing to talk about....but in that video he is talking of empaths...and empaths is anyone who is highly sensitive to the feelings in others and what goes on energetically in the environment and subconsciously in other people. I'm an ENFP and I'm an empath. I don't like the term too much...but you gotta use something to make the distinction. Not everyone gets bedridden for example because of being overwhelmed by other people's feelings for example. I think Jung was a trailblazer and many of his tentative definitons might have been misconstrued by people after him.
 

Pionart

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 17, 2014
Messages
4,039
MBTI Type
NiFe
What I notice most strongly with Lynch in terms of his vocals, is that he's a very emphatic speaker, meaning there's a lot of Si in there. But I don't think it's overdone Si, in that I don't think it stifles his other functions. I think it's just well integrated, although perhaps a bit played up.

I did see an instance of Fi-Ne-Si ordering in his functions, and other bits that were Fi-Ne or Si-Te, and I'd definitely say he's more at home with the abstract communications, rather than being the type to live on memory lane. ISTJ would be a rather absurd typing.
 

yeghor

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 21, 2013
Messages
4,276
Definitely not INFP. His style is quite ordinary. Probably ISFP. His smile reminds me of Javier Bardem's smile. He now has the hipster hair.

 
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