Why Ni is THE visualization function

Ni eyes come with vivid imagination, subconscious processing and intuitive problem-solving.

__φ(。。) I wrote a book

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References
House M.D. season 2 episode 18 Sleeping Dogs Lie

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[PowerRedBullTypology]

I'd say this is a very accurate description of what might be going on. I'm very curious how close it is actually the same phenomenon going on.
Ni seems like deep dream (REM)
Ne seems like superficial dream (daydream)
Ni is like dreaming so deep that it's quite disconnected from external reality, whereas Ne is having one foot in a dream and one foot in external reality. Ni seems real because in a deeper dream, so you're not aware you're dreaming. With Ne you might can never fully believe it, because you're always aware it's a dream or imagination because on foot is still in external reality.

btw: interesting subject to talk about!

[ho]

Ni for me is definitely unconscious imagination. That’s the best way to describe it. It’s having eyes in another world, usually without any awareness that you are in that world. Somehow the situation becomes a sort of mental limbo because I’m only half aware that I’m in either reality or my imagination. Sometimes I’ll snap back to reality and realize that I was just watching events occurring in my head.

Sometimes that imagination is enough to give us the “aha” moments, which I think can also just be moments of small resolutions about whatever we’re thinking about. Often, those small resolutions make me excited about my newfound knowledge, sometimes leading me to take a step in the real world to take advantage of such knowledge.

[anniefarase]

The best example I would describe dominant Ni at work to someone who is not Ni-dom (especially to my sensor friends) is to imagine keeping your room the same, consistent way for a long period of time. It may be organized or it may be messy. But every object has been in one location for that period so that you are used to its arrangement. You're used to your surroundings even though you don't pay too much attention to each little detail.

Now imagine that just one object is disturbed from its original position. It may have been removed, rotated, or placed inches away from its original position. Your Inferior Se can definitely sense that something has changed as if the whole room is off balance but you can't exactly pinpoint what has been altered. You know your weakness is troubleshooting, so even though something feels different, you can't identify what is keeping itself hidden from you. And it may take a long time to figure this out, that an object has been thrown away.

It isn't a "psychic" function like some misinformed people say it is. Ni-doms do pay attention to their environments, but they take in information differently than their Se-dom cousins. They focus more on how these details (the objects) form one giant unit and how that unit should be defined. Is it a cohesive unit? A mismatched unit? Either way, if how they perceive the unit changes, then they begin to suspect that the a component of the unit has changed, been omitted, or been tampered with, etc.

I've got a lot more examples I could bring up as I hang with a lot of sensors, mostly Se-types, and know how much sensors love hearing examples to understand theories haha.

[juli-]

This is such a good comparison! I'll use this as a metaphor to explain my Ni in the future: It's like you know the whole plot of a dream after you wake up but you can't remember every individual step how you got there.
Thank you for your professional videos. You helped me so much in understanding more about mbti and especially the functions.

[HaydnYick]

I completely agree with that. My eyes do that when I'm telling something from my memory, could be a story or some facts. I literally see whatever I'm explaining as a movie in front of me and I'm just saying what I'm seeing, probably why my eyes move like that. Very bizarre but actually really eye opening.

[tofusamurai]

OMG I have always described 'Ni' as similar to super-imposing a dream over reality (like two films super-imposed over one another), so it makes sense that Ni eye movement would mirror REM sleep eye movement! WHOA!!!

[lesedi_lebona]

You just made me realise that all of my Ni creations when I'm awake feel almost exactly like dreams, except I'm just more capable of remembering them and enveloping myself within them

[jamalcole]

I agree. I prefer to look away when people are discussing/describing something so I can visualize and get more involved with what they are saying. Sometimes i have to stop myself from actually seeing the words they are saying

[matthewedwards]

There's another phenomenon that's well-known for INTJs (high Ni users): the "death stare."
I think there's two possible ways to interpret that: 1) the audience said something interesting and is simply shocked that they now have the INTJ's FULL attention or 2) the stare is misinterpreted by the audience; in reality the INTJ has defocused his/her eyes (possibly while talking) to limit sensory input while they are inside their own head. I do this, and I think I do it so I won't get distracted while I'm considering concepts. The audience often says it looks like the INTJ is staring right through them.

[tosh]

Oh wow! As an INTJ, I really love seeing how you relate REM to Ni. I often recall many of my dreams, and often shock people with my dream stories. Wonder if other Ni users have vivid dreams?

[justinapetrus]

I've noticed myself doing this eye movement, or rather noticed most other people don't. I have been an avid dreamer for most of my life. If you ask me what I did the day before vs what I dreamed the night before, the latter will be much more vivid.

[atomnous]

Interesting. I might just add that eureka is more Ne, even when we're talking about our dreams. Ni seems to not really take those as "surprising" realizations, just a part of their obvious reality, while Ne constantly has these casual eureka moments because it actively tries to lego its way up to it when excited. But I know as Ne-Si, I'm not really that visual. My visualization is often blurry, sketchy, or like a frozen memory. I can sometimes force it to be detailed and continuous, but not always. I've also been saying Se-Ni is more visual, and your information here verifies it more. It's a really interesting finding. Thanks!

[chadnash]

I've associated the rapid eye oscillations with a state of internal gathering. I've noticed that both Ni and Ti users do this but at different times. Ti users do this when they are thinking while Ni users do this while they are gathering their perceptions (not with Ni alone but using Te too). You can see this in action in any debate, INTJs will typically exhibit the eye movement prior to speaking but then once they shift over to Te and begin deconstructing their perceptions into logic they will exhibit more wandering eyes (though different than Ne). Ti users on the other hand will do these eye movements while deconstructing their perceptions into logic.

Strangely enough I've noticed that those with both Ni and Ti (INFJ, ISTP) don't tend to do this eye movement at all. Rather they have very still eyes that lock into place, move, then lock into place again. I think it is the combination of an introverted function and an extroverted function (with the introverted function being higher on the stack) that creates this effect. Ni-Te combines the still nature of Ni with the more rapid nature of Te. This reflects an internal state of quickly logically shifting through very focused perceptions. Which intuitively explains the eye movements. The same is true for Ti-Ne, very focused logic (that is dominant) and a rapid perception function causes a similar phenomenon. Theoretically Ni-Fe should simulate this as well but since the feeling functions don't require the same amount of deliberation it doesn't seem to occur.

Basically you can think of involuntary eye movements as the brain searching for content. When one is doing large Ne eye movements this is reflective of its nature to jump from one loose connection to another, parts of the brain far apart are being activated rapidly, this is illustrated in Dario Nardi's research regarding Ne as well. Thus the small, rapid eye movements can be thought of as jumping from connection to connection within a much more local section of the brain. As a general pattern it seems to arise when an introverted and extroverted function is heavily engaged at the same time and the introverted function is higher on the stack. Thus an ISFJ might do this when heavily engaging Ti-Ne.

[nateo]

Ni really does feel like you are psychic ESPECIALLY for all the ENFJs (me!) and INFJ's as well. I can figure out how I got to a conclusion but only after an exhausting period of self-analysis.

[Mijolite]

Another thing besides REM that comes to mind, that is similar to this horizontal oscillation, is inducing hypnosis with a pendulum, often a pocket watch. The eye movement following it is much slower and more of a half-circle than straight horizontal line, but since it is one of the ways that helps induce this hypnotic state, same state as in half wakefulness half sleep (like hypnogogic state when we're falling asleep and hypnopompic state when we're waking), it suggests to me that there is this link between this eye movement and Ni(-like) cognitive function, not just arising from this function happening, but also the opposite - inducing it. When I was looking up this pendulum usage in hypnosis, I also came across some research papers on this REM-like eye movement occuring DURING hypnosis, being used to measure how deep into a hypnosis a person is.

[GuilgaMax-]

Nice video, but something to be aware of is that Ni usually doesn’t work alone in the mind, Ni and Se are in an axis with each other, if Ni is the first function in the stack, Se will be automatically be in the fourth slot of the stack, if Ni is in the second slot of the stack, Se will be in the third slot, if Ni is in the third slot, Se will be in the second slot, and finally, if Ni is in the fourth slot, Se is the top function, and would be great to analyze how they interact with each other in each position

[veronicapetrov]

i have an insanely good memory because i can visualize things extremely easily so I can recall situations exactly like how they happened. i've made videos of myself and I didn't even notice I did those eye movements! I talked to some friends & was shocked to find out that many of them did not have the same visualization that I do.

[gotobassmsn]

I believe they are scanning their brain to gather the information as they are speaking about a subject.

[Mushroomfields]

I had more details on my dreams when I tried to get into lucid dreams, after writing down what I remembered of one the next became way more easy to remember in detail. They were weird in a sense that it felt like if I was acting in a movie where I know the script for everyone and no matter how surprising or unnatural something was I thought "ah yeah, this is normal or makes sense" and acted accordingly as if I was expecting it.

[aprilhelm]

I don't see that REM has the same function as introverted intuition. Sleep and probably dreams are used by the body to maintain it's regular healthy function. Without any sleep or without good quality sleep, health and cognition declines because we need it to function and be healthy. Ni, on the other hand, seems to have a different function than body maintenance. So... I just don't see a lot of basis for that comparison.