The Magic and Mystery of Introverted Intuition

Have you ever wondered how Introverted Intuition works?

I have to admit, as an INFJ I sometimes find myself at odds with this mysterious function. If you look online, you’ll describe it as so many things:

Foresight

Pattern-recognition

“Psychic powers”

Regardless of how it’s described, Introverted Intuition (or “Ni” as type geeks like me call it) can be both a blessing and a curse to live with. Often I’d love to sink into its depths and soak in all the pictures and patterns it gives me; other times my predictions are scary and unsettling. When I have foreboding premonitions I feel like I must do anything to change the scenery. I try to focus on the here and now, pushing out any negative ideas.

But most of the time I love introverted intuition; I fall in love with what could be, and what I’ve seen leading up to a moment in time that I’ve yet to encounter. Anyone with Ni as their dominant function is going to enjoy using it, but it can also get messy sometimes.

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Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

How Introverted Intuition Works

Introverted intuition is a perceiving function that sorts through conscious and unconscious data giving the user a “vision” or symbol that holds great meaning. Some typologists call Ni “perspective-shifting” and an ability to see things from many different angles to find their underlying meaning and essence.

Isabel Briggs-Myers said the greatest gifts of Ni are the “flashes of inspiration, the insight into relationships, the imagination, the originality, the access to resources of the unconscious, the ingenuity, and the visions of what could be.”

Carl Jung said that Ni is “directed toward the inner object.”

But what is the inner object?

What Jung believed was that the inner object meant the areas of the unconscious. He believed that Ni-users didn’t just consider raw, outer material, but instead preferred to look at “subjective images of things which, though not to be met within the outside world, constitute the contents of the unconscious, and of the collective unconscious in particular.”

What does this mean though? What is the unconscious or collective unconscious?

According to Jung, the psyche is made up of three separate but interacting systems. These three systems include the ego, the unconscious, and the collective unconscious.

The ego is the conscious mind. Thoughts, memories, and emotions that one is aware of are found in the ego. This is where we get our feelings of identity.

The second system of the psyche that Jung defined was the unconscious. The unconscious contains temporarily forgotten personal information, as well as abstract symbols and memories of which one may not even be aware. When we dream we often access the unconscious. In fact, many Ni-users report having especially vivid and influential dreams.

The collective unconscious contains universal primordial images and ideas. Archetypes and symbols like the tree of life, the wise old man, or the great mother live here. Carl Jung believed that the collective unconscious had great influence over people and worked to add meaning and depth to life’s experiences. He found that these archetypal images were prevalent across various cultures and throughout various times in history, and so believed that they had some unconscious power in all civilizations.

INFJs are especially attached to the collective unconscious, and often interpret life through a series of symbols and images that can be traced back in time. When they explain themselves, they often use pictures to describe something rather than a literal account of events.

As an example from my own life, instead of pondering my feelings (“I feel sad, bored, trapped, angry, cheated”) I might simply imagine myself in a bird cage tossed and turned on a stormy sea as the key to my escape sinks to the bottom of the ocean. This picture fills my mind and that feels like my reality more than actual words.

As another example, when an INJ is wasting their time they might not think, “dang it, I’m wasting my time!” They might instead imagine our bodies aging and deteriorating, the earth spinning rapidly, or other symbols that mean something to them about the passage of time. As you can see, we tend to think in non-linear pictures and see events and situations as symbolic or pre-emptive signs of things to come.

There are a lot of articles out there that will define introverted intuition as an ability to plan, but many types can plan! What makes Ni unique is that it it is focused on seeing or envisioning symbols and images from the unconscious that mean something for the future.

Introverted intuition sees the background material of what happens in daily life and is more concerned with this background material or hidden meaning than it is with what shows up on the surface.  Jung said “For intuition, therefore, unconscious images acquire the dignity of things.”

How does Introverted Intuition Play Out in Daily Life?

People with introverted intuition often have gut feelings that are uncannily accurate. They are excellent at spotting trends or patterns to form a prediction of what may be. They often don’t know how they got these predictions or why, but one neuroscience expert named Dario Nardi has an idea of how it all works…

“The Ni types often show a whole-brain, zen-like pattern. This pattern occurs when all regions of the neocortex are in synch and dominated by brain waves that are medium-low frequency and very high-amplitude….What is this zen state like? When presented with a problem, the Ni types seek to harness all neocortex regions in order to “realize” an answer. Imagine a troop of blind men trying to identify a secret object by touch. One man feels a trunk and says, “tree”; another detects four legs and says “table”; a third feels tusks and says “boar”. Like the blind men, each region offers a different perspective, and a zen-like synchronous state allows the person to reconcile various perspectives to arrive at a best-fit answer (an elephant).”

Nardi goes on to say that Ni types easily show a zen state when tasked to envision the future. This is where INTJs and INFJs truly shine. Their minds synthesize a plethora of information obtained via their inferior sensing function. As this information is synthesized and sorted, they will suddenly get an image or a “hunch” about what will happen or something’s underlying meaning. These predictions can be unsettling to others, and even the Ni user themselves.

For me personally, Ni reveals insights and revelations about people that seem to come out of the blue. I remember knowing that a man was a child molester long before there was any evidence of him being one. I recall knowing my parents were in danger one night and then finding out the next day that they had been in a car accident.

Kind of weird, I admit.

Like anyone, I’ll mess up sometimes and misread something or someone. However, being Ni dominant means I think in these symbols and I’ve learned to trust these gut intuitions and hunches about life and what’s happening or could happen. INJs are always trying to think of the big picture and put together a future plan or idea composed of all the bits of sensory information we’re receiving. We support our Ni with either Extraverted Feeling (for INFJs) or Extraverted Thinking (for INTJs). These auxiliary functions help us to actually do something with our visions instead of just leaving them there. For the INFJ, feeling motivates them to connect with people or inspire them with our ideas. For the INTJ, thinking helps them to map out strategies or create innovative systems. The auxiliary function is there to help INJs bring their inner visions into the world in a tangible, real way.

The Dark Side of Introverted Intuition

All this picking up clues and connecting dots can reveal startling or upsetting future outcomes. I’ve guessed at things happening; relationships ending in very specific ways for people I know, ambitions and dreams failing, someone being in a dangerous situation or hurt. While all types can occasionally do this,  Ni dominant types are often are plagued by this problem the most.

Our struggles come when we try to explain our insights and they are misunderstood because we rely so much on abstract material. You see, we don’t always know why or how we got the particular idea we currently have. Dredging up all the sensing data from our inferior function (Extraverted Sensation) can seem overwhelming. We know the facts are there, but organizing all the data and explaining it in concrete terms can feel like an exercise in futility. Nevertheless we are usually quite sure of our premonitions or predictions. Thankfully, with growth and maturity we usually get better and more proficient at explaining ourselves to people who are unlike us in their mental hardware.

The Magic of Introverted Intuition

Each personality type has unique talents that makes them shine. For some types, organizing life efficiently and streamlining tasks comes easily. For other types emotional awareness and leadership of groups comes easily.

If you’re an INJ, the magic of Ni appears when someone explains to you an idea they’ve had, and you know it will work because you can see what’s led to this point, and where things will likely go. It provides a sense of joy when you can be enthusiastic about someone’s dream, maybe even your own, because you have a visionary insight into how that dream will become a reality.

Introverted Intuition helps you to see past this moment in time to avenues of possibility into the future that others are blind to. Ni is powerful when it works with other functions like thinking, sensing, or feeling to concoct original plans or innovations. It helps you to see past what’s right in front of you and discover more than what’s on the surface. Yes, sometimes it can be misleading, but other times it feels like it’s a magical door that can unlock your true purpose, your biggest hope or dream, or an understanding of someone that nobody else has ever grasped.

What do you think?

How do you feel about introverted intuition? Have you had any experiences with it that you’d like to share? I’d love to talk to you and find out more in the comments!

Want to find out more about your intuition? Check out 10 Introverted Intuition Hacks for INFJs and INTJs

Find out more about your personality type in our eBooks, Discovering You: Unlocking the Power of Personality Type,  The INFJ – Understanding the Mystic,  The INFP – Understanding the Dreamer, and The INTJ – Understanding the Strategist. You can also connect with me via Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter!

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