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Intuition/knowing what it's telling you/trusting it, etc...

SilkRoad

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How much do you trust intuition? Do you always know what it’s telling you? Do you sometimes just feel that it’s telling you SOMETHING and you can’t quite figure it out?

I don’t necessarily mean “intuition” as in Ni or Ne. I think those are more different ways of approaching the world. Probably I mean more the gut feeling sort of thing. But perhaps some of you can tell me what I mean. Or approach it any way you like. ;)

I’m sure this has been discussed before but it’s something I wonder about. There are always those who will say “my intuition is never wrong.” Of course these people make mistakes like anyone, but they may argue that they make those mistakes when they ignore intuition, not when they follow its leadings.

But surely it is going too far to say that gut feelings are always correct? Don’t people often regret following their gut feelings? What if you want something really badly – can’t that confuse the issue?

If you really like someone, and your gut is telling you that they like you back, but they later deny any liking beyond friendship, are they lying? Or did your gut tell you what you wanted to hear? (really wondered about this one recently? I think the answer is “your gut told you what you wanted to hear”, generally – or maybe the person just flirted for fun! – but it probably varies…)

I tend to find that I get feelings, but I have trouble figuring out what they are telling me…sometimes they are just strong feelings and I wonder "why do I feel like this?" Sometimes I never figure it out, sometimes realization only comes later when I have put a few more pieces in place. This can happen to me particularly in certain places, which is probably more of a question for psychogeography. Though I think I am getting better at telling what the feelings are saying, as I get older, and self-awareness helps with it too. There do seem to be many people, however, who get feelings and seem to know just what they mean. Or they think they do – not the same thing!

I’d be interested in all your thoughts!
 

nolla

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But surely it is going too far to say that gut feelings are always correct? Don’t people often regret following their gut feelings? What if you want something really badly – can’t that confuse the issue?

I have observed a pattern. The gut feeling seems to be strongly related to my morals, in other words "what is good for me" in a wider frame of reference. This is why it is sometimes hard to follow it. My ego-self-interest often disagrees with my intuition. The intuition doesn't seem to care for practical matters at all. And it seems to understand the complicated web of morals I have a lot more clear than my conscious mind. The thing is, it will take them as far as it can, but my ego doesn't like that. Basically, I think it is impossible to decide that enough is enough, now it is time for my ego. You either follow through until you have become very much dissociated from the normal way of life, or you will have those clashes between ego and gut.

If you really like someone, and your gut is telling you that they like you back, but they later deny any liking beyond friendship, are they lying? Or did your gut tell you what you wanted to hear? (really wondered about this one recently? I think the answer is “your gut told you what you wanted to hear”, generally – or maybe the person just flirted for fun! – but it probably varies…)

I've actually seen this go the other way more often. There has been this feeling of uneasiness that I have bypassed, and later found out it was right. Keep in mind that the enculturation is telling you that you should be dating someone. This pushes many people dating for dating, not because they really met someone they feel is right for them.

There do seem to be many people, however, who get feelings and seem to know just what they mean. Or they think they do – not the same thing!

I don't know if it's smart to trust it all that much. I mean, it is telling something, but it often isn't all that clear what it is. On the other hand, I don't think that ego can really make too good decisions anyway, so, it's not a big deal if you replace it with intuition. I mean, it doesn't ultimately matter where people get in their lives. And even if it does, ego doesn't have a better map of the future than intuition.
 

entropie

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I dunno, it's difficult for me. I am very sensitive about many things yet I often isolate myself from others. As in I dont really care what they feel as long as they find my shit hilarious. That way I am suiciding and hunches or intuition dont really have any chances to ever emerge. When a guy then who always found my shit hilarious then suddenly starts in the company of others to work against me somehow, I feel betrayed and start to feel something for real for the first time. I dunno, I am very retarded when it comes to dealing with my emotions.

I always have hunches when I meet new people and these first impressions or hunches normally stay forever with that person. I am incapable of getting lost of a first impression -.-
 

lunalum

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I am still very confused about this type of intuition. I thought I was S for a short while because of this. I wonder if this more common usage of intuition is more linked to F than to N....
 

entropie

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I tend to think the common usage of intuition is the most close you can get to mbti intuition. You feel how a judging function like F or T is missing. You just assume something about somebody because your subconcious mind somehow connected the dots, but a real judgement there never was.
 

Jaguar

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I am still very confused about this type of intuition. I thought I was S for a short while because of this. I wonder if this more common usage of intuition is more linked to F than to N....

Someone once asked me why I came here. I thought intuitive people would be here.
Silly me. :)
 

entropie

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Does that count as a reason too ? :D
v
[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqoQ9nKxKVw&feature=related"]:D[/YOUTUBE]
 

lunalum

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Well, I'm just not that kind of intuitive :tongue:

At least going with the thing on gut feelings, I don't see how either Ni or Ne has to do with that. Unless you are counting a certain excitement that comes with a sudden realization or finding more possibilities.

On the subconscious/conscious, perhaps Ni gets close to this type of intuition... Ne seems to swtich around a bit with this.

What am I missing here?
 

entropie

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I dunno, I dont think it's all just achieved thru a "gut feeling". My girlfriend says I have tremendous abilities to understand systems, so I generally get along in new environments quite fast cause I understand how people roll. I personally always think it's because I have a good empathy about people but nowadays I am growing more and more sceptic of it. I rather think I am good at understanding the system and can then recreate behaviour and mask myself as someone I am not.

I blame much I do on a gut feeling, maybe this is what it is about: that blaming things on a gut feeling means to always go by your first feeling or your first thought and by calling it a "gut feeling" you evade public examination of your poorly made decisions :)
 

Jaguar

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Well, I'm just not that kind of intuitive :tongue:

At least going with the thing on gut feelings, I don't see how either Ni or Ne has to do with that. On the subconscious/conscious, perhaps Ni gets close to this type of intuition... Ne seems to swtich around a bit with this.

What am I missing here?

Have a look at this, "Do you trust your Ni?" thread:

http://www.typologycentral.com/foru...lity-matrices/21376-do-you-trust-your-ni.html

I like pippi's response, who is one of the few female INTJs:

http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21376&p=816671&viewfull=1#post816671
 

Thalassa

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I know when a certain person is trying to talk to/get in touch with me. My intuition never fails with him. What this means, I don't know. I've also had this with other people. It's kind of like...emotional telepathy? I believe it's actually a form of being what some believers in this phenomenon call being an "empath"...I believe telepathy might involve actual thoughts, and clairvoyance foresight of events, and I have neither of those. But boy do I have this intuitive empathetic connection with some people, boy howdy. I have since I was a teenager, maybe sooner. My mother swears I talked about holding hands with my dead grandmother when I was five or six. :shrug:

As for "just knowing" what is the right thing to do for your self, in your own life, following "the voice within" ...does that count as intuition? I thought I might be ISFP for a while...that this "voice within" was Fi/Ni and I was confusing my Se with Ne...but then it was carefully explained to me the difference between Se and Si, and now I understand that I definitely have Ne and Si...I'm definitely an NFP, though some might debate on E or I.

I'm not sure any of these things have to do with functions, anyway. I think Ne/Ni have to do with a preference toward theory and abstract and being in your head, it's a style of thinking, and has nothing to do with other kinds of intuition.

The "just knowing" what is right for you, though....could be Fi or Ni, maybe, because that's an internal knowledge about one's self.

I'm not sure about what you're talking about in the OP, about knowing someone else's feelings for you ...I think that could be hit or miss, depending on the situation and how well you know the person. Sometimes it could be wishful thinking, and in other cases it very well be intuitively or empathetically following their patterns of behavior, and body language, etc. Sometimes you *can* tell how someone feels because their actions speak louder than words...it's apparently a gift NFs are supposed to have, anyway. It has to do with connecting patterns of behavior, though, which could be function-related and not "psychic" at all.
 

SilkRoad

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In terms of someone's feelings for you, I tend to think it's wishful thinking in many/most cases. I haven't had definite proof in my own case that it tends to be anything else. ;)

Jag, thanks for the links to the other threads, I'm going to have a look.

Just throwing this out there, and maybe it's crazy talk. Could "intuition"/"gut feeling" be (in some cases) Ni working to synthesize and connect and draw conclusions about something/someone at such unconscious speed that it simply hits you as "a gut feeling"?
 

guesswho

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For me, intuition is connecting the dots.

Spotting the dots is what's most difficult.
 

Santosha

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My intuition flares with other people. (Probably becaue I am an F).

Usually it goes something like this; scanning the external environment and interactions, i spot something. Its fuzzy & hidden. Subtle. I'm not sure exactly how that first zap comes to be, it must be something embedded in the subcon, something the mind finds off, inconsistent, different, etc. What ever it is, after that initial strike, its on, and now at the forefront of my mind. I focus. Where have i seen this before? What connected that circumstance? My mind spins wildly digging up other thoughts, knowledge, point to point to point, but its able to move from point A to point D very quickly, examining every impression.. and not just sensory impressions, feeling impressions, ideas, etc. until finally enough impressions, thoughts, patterns emerge, and bingo.. the "hunch" or expected outcome is identified. It may be exact, it may be gray.

I don't act on every hunch I have. People that say their hunches are *always* right, have probably made a tremendous amount of connections that lead them to this conclusion, but their consciously unaware of all the processes and patterns they really took to get there.

I've been wrong with gut instincs, or "intuition". But even this situation with a false conclusion is stored into a pattern in my mind. The next time this pattern emerges, I will also link it to the incorrect outcome, and realize the hunch is either off, or more info needed.

They say that the mind is ALWAYS taking in info. I saw this story on a kid abducted from a grocery store. There was a person in the parking lot at that time, and they were able to get this person to remember back to the scene like she was there.. find the car they believed had taken the kid, and recall the license plate! She had no conscious memory of what that vehcile even looked like, yet the dug it out of her.
 

lunalum

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So basically you are saying that Ni does have something to do with gut feelings, and more specifically to that 'just knowing' feeling?

So then Ni is close to this kind of intuition, but not necessarily Ne. I'm pretty sure Ne is more like what went terribly wrong in class today when I forgot my pencil and lost my focus, leading to a chain of ideas and associations based on the work and on this conversation. :tongue: They are both so tricky to pin down. Like Jello but with more complexity...

Anyway, I'm still not sure about what specifically I'm supposed to get from that thread.
 

Jaguar

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So basically you are saying that Ni does have something to do with gut feelings, and more specifically to that 'just knowing' feeling?

Knowing, is but a drop of water in the oceanic depths of the unconscious. People spend decades studying varying levels of consciousness and intuition - psychologists, neuroscientists, and anyone interested in finding out more about man than what merely floats upon the surface.

"According to cognitive neuroscientists, we are conscious of only about 5 percent of our cognitive activity, so most of our decisions, actions, emotions, and behavior depends on the 95 percent of brain activity that goes beyond our conscious awareness."
Mysteries of the Mind:
Your unconscious is making your everyday decisions

http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/050228/28think.htm

I don't think the OP wants to turn this into an Ni thread but many threads and posts have been made to compare Ni and Ne.
Here is one I have referred to, many times:

http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23366&p=888827&viewfull=1#post888827
 

tibby

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I am wary of my Ni, although it's supposed to be my leading function. I don't get strong feelings like this often, but when I do, it's like, bam, hard to ignore. I am more afraid of trusting and going with it rather than doubting it, though.

Sometimes I confuse it with my own hopes and wishes. I want something to be some way so badly I make myself believe it's that gut feeling sort of a thing. But the gut feeling is VERY different, it feels like I have no choice but to go with it.

For me it's strongest about people.
 
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