There are various functions that are tied closely to imaginative thinking.
There are various functions that are tied closely to imaginative thinking.
Last edited by Iwantpeace; 09-03-2020 at 08:53 PM.
Even though Ni and sometimes Ne types are the IEs questionably assigned to imagination, I am really beginning to wonder a lot about the nature of imagination in general. It is *because* I have a wild imagination that it took me so long to accept my SEI typing (which intertype relations has proven to be the best guess for a "type").
But I have a lot of common sense and am not a risk taking person. I am security-preferring. Yet I see people of other types live out their imaginations which at extremes might suggest being too out of touch with reality and lost in their ideals (versus simply knowing or promoting them).
Has much really been studied about the realm of imagination in cognitive science? Are their perhaps different kinds? Is it possible that every type is imaginative in their own way, which happens to be 1 of 8 or 16 types?
My imagination is such that I can write or say really zany off the wall things for amusement such as a wild rhyme and it could make some people wonder. I tend to do it when I am in high spirits. I have imagined inventions decades before they became realized by some one else in pop culture - big things that are useful and marketable and innovative. But my problem with innovation is I will have great ideas that are too far ahead of their time because there is some lack of development - usually in technology or people's collective social awareness. But if you want me to start storytelling to entertain your child, take a stuffed animal and start inventing an adventure that entertains them, that comes very easy to me even though I am S. I am also good at any imaginative creative design whether crude like bending the wires from an under-the-bed bag into a space looking magazine rack, assembling materials for a wild Halloween costume, or composing new melodies, or other visual arts. I never did invent cartoon or anime characters though. For some reason it feels too restrictive once the master is made (the rest being duplicate work variations on a theme). Hey even my limited kitchen experience is successfully imaginative when creating brand new dishes and flavor sensations.
What are your experiences with imagination in lieu of your type? Is it perhaps not a type related matter at ALL?!
Last edited by vesstheastralsilky; 01-30-2019 at 08:16 PM.
~* astralsilky
Each essence is a separate glass,
Through which Sun of Being’s Light is passed,
Each tinted fragment sparkles with the Sun,
A thousand colors, but the Light is One.
Jami, 15th c. Persian Poet
Post types & fully individuated before 2012 ...
@vesstheastralsilky
Good post, i'm very interested in this problem as well. I have typed myself as Intuitive type (most times LII) for most of my time with Socionics, but i am shifting towards SLI for the present moment. The reason was exactly because of my dominant imagination and non-concrete nature - i do not bother myself with trifles and routine, i speak in generalisations and abstractions; i pursue ideas, not concrete things. But, imagination should maybe be seperated from what is categorised as iNtuition? Some descriptions of Si actually do take account of the internality of the process, and the ''interpretation'' of physical experience, which seem to blur the line between Si and Ni. I will write more about my own imaginative processes in the morning.
You seem to take some of the same interests towards the semantic aspects of the theory as i do, and i find your posting here to direct towards important considerations.
If we were to delineate different kinds of imagination based on the 16 types, what might that look like?
~* astralsilky
Each essence is a separate glass,
Through which Sun of Being’s Light is passed,
Each tinted fragment sparkles with the Sun,
A thousand colors, but the Light is One.
Jami, 15th c. Persian Poet
Post types & fully individuated before 2012 ...
"What if" speculation drives me up the walls.
"I would rather be ashes than dust"
"Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked."
I was always interested in ''What if...'' scenarios, because they revealed an alternative world to create and explore.
My imagination is very much imagery, feelings, symbols by general, vague structures. I often see ''animated'' figures morphing and tearing apart, reforming and doing the same again. I often ''feel'' a mist of vagueness before i can conceptualize it and describe it rationally. Things are most interesting and essential in this egg, beginning state. The words seem to carry the essence outwards, but only i know it by its bare design. Misty is a good way to describe it, actually. Often i will imagine myself imagining. Imagination reveals more or less of my deep state, depending on the period and apparent mood i investigate it in. Often my imagination will incorporate, create and respond to bodily sensation, ''feelings'' are not uncommon, and the separation is hard to make. I often lose my boundary between my thoughts, and they have symbiotic relationships, where no thought stands alone and has no bounds to other thoughts. I imagine in cycles, seeing similar motivic patters corresponding to certain themes or categories of thought. Sometimes my imagination becomes easier to identify by these motifs. ''Death'' or ''end'', for example, is an all-absorbing vortex. My imagination is strengthened by music in headphones, either by the isolation of my thoughts from external influence, or by the associations with the sound, i don't quite know. It is the main reason i enjoy listening to music so much. My imagination works with primordial and general concepts, such as ''beginning'', ''void'', ''relation'', ''experience'' etc. I work from there into specifics, and try to relate all my imagination and thought back to these things. My imagination can also build and recreate things i've seen, mostly graphical things such as video games and animation.
A bit scattered, i know.
I think i'm either ILI or SLI.
@para I can't describe an intricate process for my imagination like you can. For me, it just happens. The feeling is instaneous inspiration which typically amuses me upon immediate reflection. When I am busy working out the aesthetic details of an imaginative painting, I feel hard at sensory work. Then I spend a long time, usually at least an hour after a session, just looking at it, trying to analyze what I created differently and just take it in. But the feeling is one of wonder and trying to unwind from the diligence of the event. When I am imaginative in other ways as I said e.g. in writing it just happens. I can't notice a formulative process to describe e.g. how I might write a poem. It flows deep from my subconscious and I just let it out.
~* astralsilky
Each essence is a separate glass,
Through which Sun of Being’s Light is passed,
Each tinted fragment sparkles with the Sun,
A thousand colors, but the Light is One.
Jami, 15th c. Persian Poet
Post types & fully individuated before 2012 ...
@vesstheastralsilky
Very interesting. Not being able to explicate the process might be sensory trait?
~* astralsilky
Each essence is a separate glass,
Through which Sun of Being’s Light is passed,
Each tinted fragment sparkles with the Sun,
A thousand colors, but the Light is One.
Jami, 15th c. Persian Poet
Post types & fully individuated before 2012 ...