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[NF] What's NF intensity, creativity and imagination like?

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Dec 29, 2007
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4
Where does your intensity come from?
Where does your creativity and imagination come from?
Is there a limit to your intensity creativity and imagination?
Are you able to write in a sprawling manner freely? In an emotionally intense and intricate way how do you tap into your creativity and imagination?

I know when I'm switched on my responses are sprawling, creative and imaginative when I can relate to a topic, idea or am emotionally invested, connected to a conversation, then the flow of what I want to write becomes much easier and almost effortless, when I'm in the zone.

How much does your mood affect your intensity, creativity and imagination? For you to be in the zone, to go with the flow, to be able to express your views freely? For instance the Fe Fi gone awry thread is orgasmic, intense, epic, the kind of expression that totally just carries forward with such passionate intensity that really, the sky's the limit yeah?

How much do you have to be emotionally invested in a conversation to feel comfortable to write in a sprawling manner to flow?

Does the intensity need imagination, creativity, intuitive and emotional intelligent flex, describe whats the process like for you?

Does this makes sense to anyone?
Do you have any strategies?
Is this too convoluted again?
 

niffer

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I get into my own hyper-intense "zone" when I'm being super creatively-focused too. This happens when I'm creating any sort of art, including visual art, music, any sort of writing (even when putting together an essay), poetry, etc. I break into a cold sweat and enter an almost trance-like state, where ideas seem to flow into my head and out of my body as if they come to me through shocks of lightning. To get into this state, I mentally block out my surroundings, and become very quiet and still. Essentially I allow for a very fast and engaging conversation with myself to take place in my head.
 
Joined
Mar 23, 2010
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Mann
There is a space in the center of my chest where I have something I can only call a feeling core. When I see or hear something I consider moving or beautiful I feel something like an inner storm swell and something intense courses through me. Music especially causes this. I put on my headphones and simply allow the story of the lyrics to be all that there is. It brings all of the creativity in me to life, otherwise I find myself to be mostly dormant. If I want to write a paper or a story I put on a song to match what it is I am trying to say and often, I find myself coming out of my trance after a few hours of having listened to that song. Music enhances emotion, it is one of the only things that can summon my feelings in a normal situation, otherwise, it takes something big to make me feel like a bleeding heart INFP. I really like this about myself because my Fi seems to pass through my Te now giving me a much more logical feel inside. I can kind of summon the intensity rather than be slave to it.
 

skylights

i love
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^ that, basically.

i feel like i have an ocean inside. i can get caught up in reading something or listening to something and the ocean inside of me can swell or churn with joy or despair or rage. i try to manipulate my environment to create the right setting for inspiring something, too. i'll wear certain clothes and listen to certain music when i'm trying to get in a particular mood. if i can catch that swell, i can direct it out of me and into things i create.

that artistic/creative flow state in writing, that's from essentially summoning the ocean inside to swell up. it doesn't take much - just thinking about causes that really get me worked up. i have certain go-to pieces of music and art that are especially evocative to help me along the way, too.
 
Joined
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Messages
516
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Mann
i can get caught up in reading something or listening to something and the ocean inside of me can swell or churn with joy or despair or rage. i try to manipulate my environment to create the right setting for inspiring something, too. i'll wear certain clothes and listen to certain music when i'm trying to get in a particular mood. if i can catch that swell, i can direct it out of me and into things i create.

I forgot about this part. I kind of create myself in terms of my feelings. If I am feeling serious I will pull my hair back wear my trench coat and glasses etc. More of a bubbly me I will let my hair down throw on a smile a pair of jeans and a tee shirt. Everything about me is based on what I feel.
 

Rebe

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Ha, ha.

Today, I was thinking to myself about how certain ideas really excites me, like mental/emotional hard-ons. That's how excited I get over ideas, how emotions are expressed, revelations, facts about society, inspiring stories, humanitarian adventures ... it all pleases me so very much. I go crazy over a precise, passionate, ambiguously written paragraph about a human emotion or a human condition that is so beautifully metaphorically written. I am talking about Haruki Murakami, who is INFP most likely. I used to think INTP, which is very silly because his Fi is so blatant but his characters are so logical, detached and pragmatic. I recommend him to anyone who wants to know what an INFP can do, how limitless and how amazing Fi/Ne creativity, imagination and intelligence can be.

See, I ranted a little bit.

I get inspired by the external environment (I don't know if this is necessarily the case for everyone. I guess Ni/Ti inspiration is different. Is it?) I can't sit in a room with white walls and come up with amazing ideas. I can come up with amazing ideas while outside, staring at subway tracks, people, listening to conversations, partaking in those conversations, staring at colors, at images, at speed, the way things move, facial expressions...

When I don't reach out, when I don't hold onto something outside of myself, I sort of cave in. I get suck in a Fi-Si-loop, get stuck in the past and bad feelings and pessimism. When I see what others can do, I get optimistic. When I stop thinking, stop holding myself so tightly together, when I begin to take risks, I feel much better, much healthier and active. The more I learn how to interact and engage with the external world, the more I feel better, confident, accomplished. For some reason, I couldn't do it naturally when I was younger. It's probably how I was raised, which was a unique situation in itself. Anyway.

Intensity. I can't listen to certain types of music/songs without getting very emotional. I avoid certain movies/shows when I feel vulnerable in a particular way. It makes my Si go crazy. When I am talking to someone and I am over-excited about a topic, I have to tone myself down so I don't scare everyone. Some days I can go a mile a minute, other days it's hard for me to grasp at original thoughts.
 

Thessaly

I drink your milkshake.
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My creativity is very influenced by my environment (Ne). Once something strikes a chord with me I just run a few miles with it and give it my own twist. Inspiration has to come from somewhere and you don't notice it unless you're in an open and fairly good humoured mood.

As far as writing dark things and creating insights about life..that's usually a culmination of crap from the past (Si) that gets thrown through my value system (Fi), usually because of a surge in hormones.
 

Synapse

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Dec 29, 2007
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My creativity is very influenced by my environment (Ne). Once something strikes a chord with me I just run a few miles with it and give it my own twist. Inspiration has to come from somewhere and you don't notice it unless you're in an open and fairly good humoured mood.

As far as writing dark things and creating insights about life..that's usually a culmination of crap from the past (Si) that gets thrown through my value system (Fi), usually because of a surge in hormones.

Would you elaborate and expand upon this some more with examples?
 

Onceajoan

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Apr 22, 2010
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Where does your intensity come from?
Where does your creativity and imagination come from?
Is there a limit to your intensity creativity and imagination?
Are you able to write in a sprawling manner freely? In an emotionally intense and intricate way how do you tap into your creativity and imagination?

I know when I'm switched on my responses are sprawling, creative and imaginative when I can relate to a topic, idea or am emotionally invested, connected to a conversation, then the flow of what I want to write becomes much easier and almost effortless, when I'm in the zone.

How much does your mood affect your intensity, creativity and imagination? For you to be in the zone, to go with the flow, to be able to express your views freely? For instance the Fe Fi gone awry thread is orgasmic, intense, epic, the kind of expression that totally just carries forward with such passionate intensity that really, the sky's the limit yeah?

How much do you have to be emotionally invested in a conversation to feel comfortable to write in a sprawling manner to flow?

Does the intensity need imagination, creativity, intuitive and emotional intelligent flex, describe whats the process like for you?

Does this makes sense to anyone?
Do you have any strategies?
Is this too convoluted again?

Does anyone have anything else to add?
I'm curious. How does intensity manifest itself in terms of feelings towards others?
 

Thalassa

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May 3, 2009
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My intensity comes from a place deep inside of me, and it can keep coming and coming and coming...it's already in me, I don't need external factors, though it helps. I'm like a hurricane that's learned how to imitate a gentle breeze with maturity.

My imagination tends to have to do with imagining what it's like to be other people and why they do things in context of their environment and culture, sometimes it's also just pure fantasy, and I can be inspired by nature and architecture and travel and change and people and intense experiences. My creativity keeps flowing if I keep interacting, but I have to get away by myself to actually create something.

Yes, I can write in a sprawling manner, I use to write for sheer beauty of words and sensory impact more before I went to college, and before I realized how difficult that is for other people to understand.

Yes, my mood affects my creativity. Without a doubt.

The worst feeling in the world is being forced to be too structured (like living an STJ framework of a life). Even raw emotional pain from loss is better than forced, dull, repetitive, rote structure.

I fucking hate structure. I don't think I've worn shoes all day and I never want to have to follow a schedule again.

I'm going through a period of intense rebellion right now. It seems this has been going on since I withdrew from college almost a year ago.

I've basically tuned in, turned on, and dropped out. I'll let you know what the results are next year or the year afterward.
 

nolla

Senor Membrane
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May 22, 2008
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I wouldn't say that this kind of explosive creativity is all that common with me. I need something from the outside to trigger it, even if it all is happening on the inside. For example, if I want to paint now, and be in the zone, I might first look through all the unfinished ideas I got laying around the room. I got walls full of sketches. If I don't have any idea yet, I will go to the attic and see what kind of material I have to paint on. I got there a bunch of wood and boards and so on. I might be inspired by certain shape of a canvas. In that case it will be an idea of composition in my head without any subject. Then I try to fit in it some of my usual themes or one of the unfinished ideas. At this point I prepare the canvas. I usually just paint it white. This helps me to settle down and get into the zone. It is kind of meditative for me. When I get the canvas prepared, I start with the most obvious part of the picture. Then the picture takes over, in a way. I might get a bit further with my plans, but usually what happens, I have the image there, but it doesn't work for some reason, and I don't know why. Then I lose interest in my plan and start to do something weird with it. After doing this for a while the image transforms itself almost miraculously into something that does work. Then I only have one more challenge. To know where to stop.
 

Tabula

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To be born with a fundamental dissatisfaction with the reality I was born into necessitates the development of SOMETHING or SOME WAY to cope.

The only way I've been able to describe it in a word is "desperation" - a burning in my belly that can't be cooled by acknowledgment or put out by structure or anything else. It's something I recognize in other people too, and no, not the "desperate" you might be thinking of ... maybe I'm just projecting. I don't know. But to tap into that periodically is necessary to ease the pressure - if I go too long without doing that, the dam folds, and The Flood ensues! I'm not speaking about "desperation" in the context of a connection/lack of connection with other people; "The Flood" is self-contained with a sort of ascetic, concentrated creativity/compulsive imagining that has an almost psychotic flavor, and is not under my conscious control. It has been tempered somewhat by careful and concerted efforts to imbibe certain necessary aspects of "reality" and the society I live in in order to get along and function, but it still bears the same markings when it escapes from me at full force from time-to-time. My conscious allowance of it to have its way has a much gentler, fluid aspect to it, as compared to that "psychotic deluge" that will happen if I am forced to work within too much structure. It's funny. The middle school I attended was a very strict, rigid, structured and dry environment. Once in a while, when given the chance to finally write something we could come up with on our own, I'd always go pages and pages and pages over the required amount, and my teacher would write at the top, "A little less your thoughts on X and a little more of X next time, please." I just couldn't help it. I felt like they were slowly draining my blood, and used every opportunity I had to express SOMETHING that was uniquely my own.

To be honest, I think it's just a coping mechanism I developed as a kid as a way to release some of the anger I felt with myself and my world for it and me not being the way I wanted them to be. As for the WHY I felt that way in the first place? I don't know. :mellow:

My intensity comes from that desperation, my creativity is my pocket translator that compulsively communicates on behalf of my imagination, which itself has been there in the driver's seat for as long as I can remember.

Convoluted? Haha! That's my mother tongue! :solidarity:
 

Lauren

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Dec 7, 2008
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Does anyone have anything else to add?
I'm curious. How does intensity manifest itself in terms of feelings towards others?

Well, when I feel intensely about someone, I focus in on them entirely and I think I sound more intense, meaning I don't appear to be happy and relaxed in that person's presence. I might do something that might seem inexplicable or disjointed to them such as talking excitedly and then suddenly shutting down and abruptly leaving their presence. Or I focus in on how they're feeling or personal feelings in general and I'll want to explore those feelings. If I feel intensely about someone and have space and time to be with it, I'll relax more and be more playful. With people in general, I'll completely focus in on them when I'm talking with them. I usually try to listen as closely as I can to what they're saying. I have a good memory in general but if I feel intensely about someone, I can recall almost every conversation I've had with them, where we had it (smells, sights, sounds), what was said, and how I was feeling. Sometimes, if the opportunity comes up, I like to let the other person know what I remember about being with them. There are just a few of my closest friends who understand and don't mind the way intensity can seem like an unstoppable force. When I'm intense with my friends, I'll gush about things or go off on a long tangent about something I've thought about. My good INFJ friend has sometimes said...."whoa girl"..."Okay...I've had enough for a while"...when I'm like that. Other times she'll come along with me.

How does it manifest itself for you?
 
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