Imagination & Personality Types

[FemMecha]

Hey, I was just wondering how different types use their imagination, so if you feel the urge to share, then go for it! This includes all types whether MBTI, Enneagram, etc.

Most of my experience is with NF artist types, so I've encountered some rather extreme forms of imagination.

I have known and loved many different NF artists and have recently been reflecting on how different various types of imagination can be. I recently went to visit my sister (INFP) and she told me about a story she is writing that is based on a completely imaginary world with complexity, back-story, original languages, entire societal dynamics, character development, etc. I was struck by the specificity and complexity of her imaginative process and thought through other friends I know who develop these complex and specific stories.

I'm an INFJ, and it occurred to me that I've never imagined a story like that, and yet I'm continually lost in the abstract world and imagination. My imaginative process tends to be based on many levels of abstraction from reality, but there is always some core component tied to reality. I can create my own little worlds when lonely in a crowd by playing out a story in my mind that I'm on an adventurous mission while walking alone in a crowd, or when alone in nature I can literally hear the trees sing, but it is the actual trees I'm seeing and feeling. I compose music and poetry and love symbolic, subjective, distilled communication about reality. I love to recreate the visceral experience of one person to be felt by another. I composed music for a story about a woman who went through complex psychological pain and wanted to recreate her pain so vividly that a listener's empathy is triggered, and yet I didn't write the story itself, but tried to tie it back to reality.

I'm also familiar with ENFP imagination which can go with the flow in improvisation and find connections between any two random things. I have an ENFP teacher friend who makes up games that can involve music, helicopters, and muskrats, and somehow it all makes sense.

I'm thinking that there could be different sorts of imagination within each type, but could there be tendencies based on each category? Any discussion about this would be really interesting to see if there are any patterns or not.

 

[Mole]

Hey, I was just wondering how different types use their imagination, so if you feel the urge to share, then go for it! This includes all types whether MBTI, Enneagram, etc.

Most of my experience is with NF artist types, so I've encountered some rather extreme forms of imagination.

I have known and loved many different NF artists and have recently been reflecting on how different various types of imagination can be. I recently went to visit my sister (INFP) and she told me about a story she is writing that is based on a completely imaginary world with complexity, back-story, original languages, entire societal dynamics, character development, etc. I was struck by the specificity and complexity of her imaginative process and thought through other friends I know who develop these complex and specific stories.

I'm an INFJ, and it occurred to me that I've never imagined a story like that, and yet I'm continually lost in the abstract world and imagination. My imaginative process tends to be based on many levels of abstraction from reality, but there is always some core component tied to reality. I can create my own little worlds when lonely in a crowd by playing out a story in my mind that I'm on an adventurous mission while walking alone in a crowd, or when alone in nature I can literally hear the trees sing, but it is the actual trees I'm seeing and feeling. I compose music and poetry and love symbolic, subjective, distilled communication about reality. I love to recreate the visceral experience of one person to be felt by another. I composed music for a story about a woman who went through complex psychological pain and wanted to recreate her pain so vividly that a listener's empathy is triggered, and yet I didn't write the story itself, but tried to tie it back to reality.

I'm also familiar with ENFP imagination which can go with the flow in improvisation and find connections between any two random things. I have an ENFP teacher friend who makes up games that can involve music, helicopters, and muskrats, and somehow it all makes sense.

I'm thinking that there could be different sorts of imagination within each type, but could there be tendencies based on each category? Any discussion about this would be really interesting to see if there are any patterns or not.

I do confess, I do confess, I love the imagative particularly if they are tied to reality.

If I were a puppy dog, I would choose a master or mistress with a lovely imagination with an eye on reality.

Puppy dogs never lie, and if we wanted to, we wouldn't know how.

 

[OrangeAppled]

I sometimes think enneagram plays into this also. Among my fellow INFPs, I find e9s to have the more whimsical imagination. They seem more likely to create whole new worlds, although I did some fair share of that as a child. I'm not patient enough with details and good enough with follow-through to go that far; e9s seem to be stronger in that area. Maybe it's just aunthood stresses that prevent me from going so far...I recall going to the extent of creating maps and timelines for various characters I created as a kid. I guess Emily Bronte's imaginary Gondal world & the like are pretty standard for an INFP imagination, then.

I do a lot of what I call "character creation". I basically invent people in my head and explore various things through them, sometimes running a situation through each. In this way, it's like I have many experiences from many different perspectives, some of which I've never experienced or felt as "me". Sometimes this involves pretty tragic & dark stuff. It definitely is like having a movie going on in your head, but there's something more exploratory about it - I am aware now of how much I am exploring value concepts and meaning this way. It's like these fantasies become symbols for me, embodying some concept words cannot, and when something strikes me in reality it's as if it's bringing some of it to life.

I'm very visual and think in terms of visual metaphor a lot. Because I think that way, I grasp it a lot better than realistic stories used to illustrate something or factual data. A lot of things will strike me as funny because they give me an interesting mental image, for instance.

I also have the story narrator in my head a lot, where I'm framing something in terms of a larger, fantasy story that is more interesting than whatever mundane task is at hand.

I don't really know what others' imaginations are like. I know my ISFP step-dad does a lot of character creation, because he is a cartoonist and if you ask him about a drawing, you'll discover it's really a character with a wholes backstory and pretty fleshed out personality.

My ISFJ mom & ESFP sister certainly have imaginations, but they are not creative like mine & my step-dad's. My mom visualizes aesthetics well, but otherwise her imagination has that distinct inferior Ne, e6 flavor of worrying the worst will happen. She imagines people getting into car accidents when they don't call her back quickly, etc. My ESFP sister's imagination seems mostly geared to humor and anticipation of tangible events and experiences.

 

[Kullervo]

Another thread for NF 9s and 4s to boast about how superior their creative abilities supposedly are

I can't count the number of ways Enneagram is misused on my fingers anymore.

 

[Cellmold]

I used to daydream a lot, go off by myself and then visualise another world or place, sometimes with me as a central character, ego driven I suppose. Although a more distinctive one was me as a giant rat.

But I used to do that for hours, just wander off and imagine.

Music I often find very good to listen to as I tend to come up with narrative's influenced by the music and it's flow.

 

[chubber]

In the Thinking Center, Fives have fear about the outer world and about their capacity to cope with it. Thus, they cope with their fear by withdrawing from the world. Fives become secretive, isolated loners who use their minds to penetrate into the nature of the world. Fives hope that eventually, as they understand reality on their own terms, they will be able to rejoin the world and participate in it, but they never feel they know enough to participate with total confidence. Instead, they involve themselves with increasingly complex inner worlds.

How the Enneagram Personality System Works

 

[radiox]

For some reason my imagination is very hyperrealist dystopian. That or serial and intimate (very David Lynch).
I bet David Lynch is an INFJ.

 

[Amalie Muller]

I'm ENTP and I write sci-fi/fantasy stories with VERY well thought out imaginary worlds (like your INFP sister). I do write occasional things set in the real world, but they are always short stories or plays, and usually are either political thrillers, or horror stories with supernatural elements.

 

[Hitoshi-San]

Eh, I don't think enneagram has a ton to do with imagination, but that's just me. Most iNtuitives I've come across were very artsy and creative. Most of the Sensors I know were as kids, but then kind of became more in touch with the real world.

Occasionally I drift off into my own little world and just ignore people, but it's just the same "task on hand" stuff that I'm thinking about. I know an ENFx and he zones out a bunch. It's almost like he doesn't know he's doing it. I notice it happens more often when he's upset or someone said something earlier that day that put him off.

 

[Arctic Hysteria]

INxP please. We have a gold mine of that thing called 'imagination'.

 

[Ene]

My imagination was so strong as a child that I could hear and see things and people that no one else could and I didn't know what was real and what was not because they were all three dimensional. Having said that, my earliest memory is looking through the bars of my crib, watching my mom change my newborn sister's diaper. My granny was there and they were talking but I didn't understand their words. I remember looking out the window and seeing an irrate scent creature. It was the first of many creatures I would see. I was nine years old before I realized the creatures weren't real and when I told myself they weren't real, I stopped seeing them with my eyes, but in my imagination, they stayed. I created worlds, characters, societies and languages, even as a child. I can't imagine living only in "this" world.

*i was seventeen months old.

 

[Flâneuse]

From what I've observed both in real life and on here, INFJs, INFPs, and ENFPs tend to have the richest symbolic and artistic imaginations. At the very least, they seem the best at vividly describing their imaginative ideas.

 

[Mal12345]

Hey, I was just wondering how different types use their imagination, so if you feel the urge to share, then go for it! This includes all types whether MBTI, Enneagram, etc.

Most of my experience is with NF artist types, so I've encountered some rather extreme forms of imagination.

I have known and loved many different NF artists and have recently been reflecting on how different various types of imagination can be. I recently went to visit my sister (INFP) and she told me about a story she is writing that is based on a completely imaginary world with complexity, back-story, original languages, entire societal dynamics, character development, etc. I was struck by the specificity and complexity of her imaginative process and thought through other friends I know who develop these complex and specific stories.

I'm an INFJ, and it occurred to me that I've never imagined a story like that, and yet I'm continually lost in the abstract world and imagination. My imaginative process tends to be based on many levels of abstraction from reality, but there is always some core component tied to reality. I can create my own little worlds when lonely in a crowd by playing out a story in my mind that I'm on an adventurous mission while walking alone in a crowd, or when alone in nature I can literally hear the trees sing, but it is the actual trees I'm seeing and feeling. I compose music and poetry and love symbolic, subjective, distilled communication about reality. I love to recreate the visceral experience of one person to be felt by another. I composed music for a story about a woman who went through complex psychological pain and wanted to recreate her pain so vividly that a listener's empathy is triggered, and yet I didn't write the story itself, but tried to tie it back to reality.

I'm also familiar with ENFP imagination which can go with the flow in improvisation and find connections between any two random things. I have an ENFP teacher friend who makes up games that can involve music, helicopters, and muskrats, and somehow it all makes sense.

I'm thinking that there could be different sorts of imagination within each type, but could there be tendencies based on each category? Any discussion about this would be really interesting to see if there are any patterns or not.

Imagination is a feature of inner perception. So none of the judging functions have imagination in the normal sense. Ne and Se imagine possibilities. Ne imagination forms connections between ideas, Se imagination forms connections between concretes. Ni and Si imagine realities. Ni realities are conceptual in nature, Si realities are concrete in nature.