Describe your Ni! | INFJ Forum

Describe your Ni!

Sam

Sam

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Mar 31, 2009
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Ok, I'm having a little hard time defining Ni myself (which has led me to question my own type - whether I use Ni at all) or relating to the whole "foreseeing of the future", "having a premonition" part, so I'd really be interested to hear INFJs take on how their Primary Function affects them, or how it works, in real life.

Have you had a "premonition" of the future?
How would you describe your "aha"-moments?
Wtf is Ni to an INFJ?

I'm really sorry if this thread topic / something similar has been covered before, in that case mods can feel free to merge this with whatever thread this has been in.

I'm really becoming doubtful and am second-guessing my type (although infj does make -the most- sense, or at least I think it does, INFP could be too but Idk...) and therefore am curious. Ni just ... I don't know if I'm using it all.
 
I cant, its too abstract and has no real consistency. I just get gut feelings that turn into logical thoughts. Ill be driving down the road thinking on a subject, and I wont have a linear though pattern, but bingo then out of nowhere my mind will say " blah blah blah" and I go, that could be why.... and it usually is. And I go with it. Where the info comes from though I don't know, I guess its kind of subconscious or something.
 
Usually it's this backseat driver in my head that processes everything and strives to find the cause.
It questions all that comes trough my five senses and aims at discovering the inner working of everything
(things like plants, animals, especially people and how their mind works)
It's propably Ni+Ti together. usually it works for my Fe and figures out things related to people.

I rarely have any premonitions of future and when I do they are kinda messy, but I just always have this
direct knowing about how things are and will be, what is right thing to do. It's like Ni gives me the direction
and tells me what is best for me and for everyone. (I guess it's a mix of Fe and Ni)

I can't really ever mute that internal processor, because it's my dominant function.
Only case it shuts up is when I fall asleep and the first thing I notice when I wake up
is my mind working on something. I also can rarely force it to work and Ni usually
takes it's time to draw conclusions. All I can consciously handle is the top of the iceberg
because the most of the reasoning goes on subconsciously. It processes information
collected with our Fe and Se, so most of the insights are related to people.

I never know when my Ni moment decides to come, but usually it happens
after heavy dose of social interaction when I'm recharging my batteries and leaning
heavily on my introverted functions. Sometimes it's about the whole social atmosphere
I'm in (how tens and hundreds of people are connected and what is the role that
everyone plays, how they impact the emotional climate and how everyone brings something new to it)

Sometimes it's about some friend of mine ( I get the feeling who this person is essentially,
I feel how he is watching the world what is important to him and what's not,
I feel where he has gone wrong, but also which are his strengths. eventually
it starts to unfold why the guy is how he is, I think about his background and what
has happened to him, how it has changed and shaped his presence. I often have
these insights in pictures and feelings so it's really hard to explain in words)

Sometimes the insight is about some chain of events not related to people.
(example would be after my biology lesson I got the picture in my head how everylittlething
is related and connected and how changing one thing in the framework would modify the whole structure again)

I read from somewhere that Ni is like framework in our heads, and everytime
we perceive something new our mind starts to meld this bit of information in the Ni framework.
This wraps up the consept nicely, but Ni is also very abstract and it creates interconnections
which we would never do consciously and the great thing about Ni is that it's rarely wrong,
the insights are always original and out of the ordinary. It's the great force from the unknown and
it creates connection between us and our souls.

I got littlebit poetical there :D but yeah intuition is great!
 
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I've had dreams that have come to pass, but I still think my theory of the self-fulfilling prophecy thing is the best explanation.
I get frequent moments of deja view, which are sometimes unnerving as I always remember something bad happening after them.
Just knowing things is another Ni thing, which I can't explain at all. It's just, you look at someone and you know instantly what they're up to (if anything). Very rarely is this sense wrong.
 
The description on the cognitive functions on-line test that I took actually was way too shaded towards the mystical quasi-supernatural side of Ni. My Ni is more thinking based. It takes a ton of information and processes it into a conclusion. It's how I think. For example, if somebody says something that I really disagree with, I'll KNOW why I disagree with it.... but it takes time and effort to put into words. It's like MATH.. some thing are just so intuitive and obvious to me, but to break it down and explain it in words is not easy.

I don't think in words... my mind just draws these conclusions, often at light-speed, and I have a strong "feel". For example, if somebody says "he's overreacting", or "she's just been a drama queen", or "he needs to just get over himself", I will have a strong FEEL very quickly that that statement is likely WRONG. It's logical. It just takes me time to turn that intuition into words.
 
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A feeling I get over a certain data set. Given x, I feel y, which is usually useful information.

English doesn't really work for describing it, the above is a small facet of what Ni really is.
 
mine is the mad thing that randomly goes boom LOL
literally. it comes at random times out of nowhere
 
Mine is like treasure hunting with a closed eye. And it happens all the time, so it's like walking in a room full of gold (personal joke : missing leaf) with closed eyes, sometimes stumbling into something.....
Sometimes I find things you know, sometimes I don't.
Sometimes I find things I like, sometimes I find things I dislike.
Sometimes it's graspable, sometimes it's not (either too big to grasp, or too small and it slips through your fingers)

When I brainstorm, it's like going into treasure-hunting mode. Of course, there are a lot of times when it goes "...I can't find anything. WTF." but there are times when it goes "AAAAAH THERE ARE SO MUCH I CAN'T HANDLE IT GOTTA SAY IT ALL."

...like now. Dearest, it's coming through my head.... D: I think I'm done.
 
I just thought of a fun analogy :D
my Ni is kind like of like walking through a field of flowers and making a bouquet. theres so much information and experience out there in the world, its all very beautiful and is only in its truest form all together (the field). but since I can't take the whole field with me, I kind of search through it to find what really captures its essence, I pick out what represents it best (this is kind of my Ti at work), but it becomes more than just individual flowers, the bouquet becomes a symbol. its something both intimately personal and unique to me, but at the same time entirely representative and characteristic of the field as a whole.
:m045:

in many ways, I don't know if my Ni can ever be truly divorced from my other functions, it seems to always run in tandem with others. like with my Fe when I realize that every opinion has some validity, but is incomplete without also realizing the perspectives that conflict with it and taking them all into account. my Ni is the soul that I embue all of my experiences with, the prism which shines personal colors onto all of my experiences, and balances even the most objective things a subjective tint. its the thread which ties all of my life together into a patchwork quilt, with each square having its own special meaning and significance.
 
This is all very interesting, thanks everybody for the input! It's true that in many descriptions it's described as almost something mystical and "magical" even, even though how it functions is pretty much very logical, but just... Hard to describe, as it uses the material that's very unconscious and in practise seem like revelations coming out of nowhere, when it's actually the important bits that it keeps pushing back to the surface for us (might be to warn us, inform us etc). Like said somewhere "Ni is the function most in touch with its own archetypal material"?

So would Ni in INFJs be some kind of a bullshit detector on one hand and a meta-analysis function on the other? The way I (if I do use) Ni would be something of getting a vibe of a person, knowing what they mean when they do/say something else (even if there would be no "obvious" reason to doubt them, a suspicious feeling maybe) and just seeing "past the mask" sort of. Although sometimes I'm very wrong about a person and getting to know them better I prove myself wrong.

Or is this Ni: Someone had been sick for a long time but no one knew. The person felt really tired and had other very random, varying symptoms but nothing serious, until one day she came out of the doctor's office and said: "They said I have no anemia. Hmp. Next week I'm going to get more tests done" - and something in you gets triggered but you don't know what it is, just a really bad feeling in your gut, and while asleep, you dream that person has a specific disease. You wake up crying and horrified, but realize it was a dream, but the bad feeling won't go away. One day the person gets a seizure and is diagnosed with this particular disease. - It's like your unconscious mind puts the things together (tiredness, "anemia", mood swings, other random symptoms occurring in the past decade) - and maybe as a result of watching too much ER or something - it puts it together and comes up with an answer.

I don't believe in the supernatural and the same is with Ni, but could it be a function that just works with all the material (we aren't conscious of) and chooses the information that matters the most to us and comes up with an answer, in a seemingly random manner. (Have you seen the last two episodes of House, season 4? I think, even though he's clearly a Ne dom, those episodes are fulllll of good, illumating Ni very well)

I still have to think about the meta-part, (as it is a perceiving function) but can't put it into words (don't know enough MBTI function talk) but I notice while writing essays unless the topic is clearly defined I could go on, and on, and on, and on, and on (classic "what's the meaning of life") - multiple frameworks, possibilities, millions of ideas - can't find a conclusion (there's always a maddening "but on the other hand..."). Ni and Ti just ... they're like the opposite of each other - Ni's endless possibilities and Ti's need to clarify clearly, but as Ni is very vague to begin with, it's madness - crazy talk. But if given a more specific essay question, Ni narrows down the options and focuses ON the question, and finding the BEST outcome TO suit it.

Ugh, or is this completely insane? ...
 
sdraguer said:
So would Ni in INFJs be some kind of a bullshit detector on one hand and a meta-analysis function on the other? The way I (if I do use) Ni would be something of getting a vibe of a person, knowing what they mean when they do/say something else (even if there would be no "obvious" reason to doubt them, a suspicious feeling maybe) and just seeing "past the mask" sort of. Although sometimes I'm very wrong about a person and getting to know them better I prove myself wrong.
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I don't know about this. I'm not an Ni specialist but I can do this too and I'm Fi dominant. It is about feeling fakeness, someone is playing an act and not being who they realy are. But I can be very wrong sometimes too. Fi helps us know when people are being fake or insincere or if they are basically good. It is like having an internal sense of the
 
Well, it's not really something tangible that I can spot the moment I use it, but I'd describe it as this sort of infinite "well" inside me, something I don't fully understand, but it shoots out those "Aha!" moments when I need them. Actually, I'm not really sure if they shoot out, or if I reach in and grab them. It could be the latter.

It's also my cozy little mental space when the external world becomes too much to handle.
 
some ways it comes through...

For me it usually comes in one of six forms:

1) A conversational voice in my head that asks questions (Really good ones): This often happens in the morning while I'm getting ready for work. Someone here mentioned this already. I'll be getting dressed and thinking about life (as usual) and a thought-voice in my head will ask a relevant question.

Edit: I should add that it isn't really a "hearing voices" kind of thing. More like a thought conversation of different perspectives in my head.

2) An image that pops into my head while I'm watching someone: This often happens when I meet someone for the first time. Often the image is an archetype from media. Like the "Music Man" or "a werewolf" or "Falling Down guy", etc.

3) A feeling upon interacting with a stranger that they have deep hidden feelings: I then feel that feeling. That one is not fun when the person holds deep resentment. This was the worst when I was a kid and the target thought I was clueless. They always show children too much. For example, my parents were renting our house. When they showed this prospective tenant around, I got a real bad feeling he wanted to hurt my parents. They rented to him. Turns out he was a major drug dealer and his references were all blow junkies at big companies that happened to owe him.

4) A premonition about the state of the environment: For example, when the last placed I worked was promising everyone great things to come, a friend and I went to lunch with some colleagues. My friend announced that company would fail in February. I said mid-October. The others with us thought we were nuts for thinking the company was in trouble. Mid-October came and they layed-off 95% of us.

5) Model Kinesthesia: When I'm doing complex math or physics, I often 'feel' the answer as a kind of mental kinesthetic experience before I can actually solve the problem. Its not really as if I feel my body moving. Its more like I feel a physics model moving in a virtual inner space. If I can't solve the problem at that level, I never do get the math right. But when I do "feel it", and only once I do, then I can derive the right result. This made test taking very hard, since I had to "feel" through each question while others applied cold hard logic.

6) Thought Convergence: Sometimes the answer to a technical problem will be like a word on the tip of your tongue. Only instead of being a word it is like a complex set of thought waves trying to come together. A feeling of mental alertness takes over and I have to stop in my tracks and give the waves room to speak. Many times they fail to come together. Other times something falls into place and a new idea pops up. This is usually how I generate technical ideas in my occupation.
 
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Ecton said:
5) Model Kinesthesia: When I'm doing complex math or physics, I often 'feel' the answer as a kind of mental kinesthetic experience before I can actually solve the problem. Its not really as if I feel my body moving. Its more like I feel a physics model moving in a virtual inner space. If I can't solve the problem at that level, I never do get the math right. But when I do "feel it", and only once I do, then I can derive the right result. This made test taking very hard, since I had to "feel" through each question while others applied cold hard logic.
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wow this is almost exactly how i tackle mental problems or draw concepts together into the write words when doing an essay...it feels like 'inner hands' moving about inside my mind
 
Here is a description according to the person who coined the term

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
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bijo said:
Here is a description according to the person who coined the term


I think I've a basic grasp of jungs thinking, so if anyone wants an explanation, please ask
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Holy shit that had so much resonance for me and my recent revelations about my LIFE, Future, and more importantly my destiny and my mission to serve man kind...
 
Billy said:
Holy shit that had so much resonance for me and my recent revelations about my LIFE, Future, and more importantly my destiny and my mission to serve man kind...
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I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic, are you?
 
Bijo,

I'd like to read your interpretation as I had some difficulty understanding what was written. Maybe if I parsed it more it would start to make sense, but I think I am missing some of his meanings.
 
One thing that initially made it hard for me to believe that I was an INFJ was Ni. I've always heard it explained like it's some sort of mystical, magical force, like I should be able to read minds and whatnot.

For me, Ni is like being meticulously observant but so absent-minded about what is going on around me that I don't realize how many details I'm actually taking in. I'm looking at the big picture and not realizing what a complex cache of evidence is lending to my general conclusion.

For example, I usually know more about people than they expect me to know. I would probably notice before most others if a person "had a crush" on another and who or if they were hiding something. I could tell if a person were lying to me or presenting themselves falsely, etc. It's always things that can be detected through subtle hints. I just don't realize that I'm picking up on them right away. In retrospect, I could probably pick out all of the things that alerted me in the first place. But hindsight is 20/20.
 
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