How Ni Dominants use Ne

I was talking to DevilDoll on facebook just now (we're RL friends), and what we were talking about gave me a really neat mental image I thought I'd share. (For once I'm not going to delete this personaliztion that my inferior Se makes me type before I get to the meat of things...)

Ni seeks the answer.

However, when Ni gets stuck, we switch to Ne which looks for possibilities (as it is our dominant shadow function).



I think this is the mental equivalent of getting a car stuck in the mud. When Ni doesn't work, we switch into Ne and spin the tires to try to get enough traction to get back to our Ni. In other words, we start spinning through possibilities to find a new track that our Ni can run on, because our current set doesn't include a solution that we can see.

Since we're not especially good at Ne, however, we can get more stuck because we don't know when to quit, just like how a tire can end up even deeper in the mud if you keep spinning it. This is how we can start running down tangents like "maybe I'm this other type, or how about this one, or I could be one of these..." When we let our Ne go too far, we lose sight of our ability to use Ni.

In these instances, it is so important for us to take a break from it and get as much distance as our Ni needs to come up with the answer, which will just hit us out of the blue. In the analogy, we need to let the mud dry until the car has traction.

 

Yeah, I came up with this today.

Also, I have that exact same mirror.

 

Yes, that tends to help in my experience. It makes a lot of sense since it is our secondary function, rather than a shadow function. When I have someone to talk it out with, it's like having someone to help shove a board under the tire. Good points there Travo. (Also, glad you've decided you're on the INFJ side.)

I got mine in 1996. My neighbors had left it on the curb because when they got it home, they found it didn't match their decor. I cleaned it up and have had it on my wall ever since.

 

I've seen the Ni + Ti effect in myself.

From what I can tell any type when hyper introverted will lean on their introverted functions, and the same is true when they hyper extrovert. For INFJs that's Ni + Ti, or Fe + Se.

I really don't think we do a good job pretending to be NTPs though. When I'm deep in Ti mode, I'm usually pairing it with Ni, and Ne is next to impossible to invoke. It's like a non-argumentative version of an INTP. There are a LOT of differences. It looks just as 'nerdy', but much more focused on the deductions rather than the inductions. We're trying to get the answers, not the possibilities.

But that's just me.

 

One of my most common Ni + Ti modes is to tinker with systems... like MBTI/Jungian psychology, computer programming, or roleplaying games. I can get lost in that for hours.

 

If you are an ISTP (and I believe that you are), then your dominant trait is Ti.

However, you have the same set of functions as an INFJ (Ti, Se, Ni, Fe), which means that when you lean on introverted functions, you lean on Ti + Ni, just like INFJs but in a slightly different preference. These are also your dominant and tertiary functions, just like INFJs, which is why I think ISTPs and INFJs get along so well together. We admire each other and who we truly are inspires the others' inner child, constantly encouraging each other to enjoy life more.