Introverted Intuition (Ni) Unconscious Vs Conscious

Introverted Intuition (Ni) Unconscious Vs Conscious

Introverted Intuition is my primary or dominant function. I’ve put a good bit of energy into understanding its utilities from my own perspective so that I could better communicate its function to others. As I’ve said before, it’s not easy to communicate the abstract process of Ni, but I’ve pulled apart what I believe are two main ways that Ni operates when building a principle, and I’m going to share those with you today. I’ve never heard anyone describe Ni’s workings this way, so what you will read below is a product of my own unconscious Ni.

Unconscious Ni

Imagine your head is a filing cabinet. Each day you observe or recall things, and the unconscious Ni brain is diligently drawing associations and clustering the most important items in yet-to-be-understood files.

These things may be understandings of “what a thing is”, “what it is not”, or maybe a “principle” from somewhere else. Ni is placing observations (what may seem from an outside perspective as “random things”) in similar files.

This processing is constantly happening in the background of the Ni mind.

These files are far from random. Ni is feeling an overarching understanding and relation of the contents within the file. Even though it is not yet complete, Ni is working to defined it as a singular entity.

Around the time where the file is nearing completion, unconscious Ni usually takes the file to the conscious brain to help it more actively find the missing piece.

The file remains open until… all of a sudden… the missing piece is found, and concept/idea/understanding just snaps together! This makes Ni very excited, the file can now be closed and the singular principle can be applied to anything in the sensory world, or just stored for a later date. Sometimes these files are really huge containing a large about of observations, sometimes they are small contain just a few.

One thing that doesn’t change is that the completed file and all of its contents have been rendered into one singular working principle. All layers are flattened into a single image – for my PSD friends.


Conscious Ni


Conscious Ni gets to the same singular principle but instead of slowly unconsciously categorizing, it begins with an idea of what the end principle should be.

Conscious Ni says—

“This is the thing I want to make or the understanding I wish to achieve! Now, I have to find all of the pieces to make it so.”

The conscious state of Ni is working overtime to figure out the pieces need for one singular principle, versus consistently organizing multiple background principles subconsciously that will eventually surface to the conscious mind.


For those who don’t have Ni in a high position in their function stack, they might think that once the Ni user has completed their file, that it still doesn’t make sense! To them the concept may seem completely disconnected.

People like this tend to say things like “oh yeah? Prove it! (in the sensory)”, which makes the Ni user mildly frustrated over the mere thought of trying to sensory prove their concept.

Can’t you just trust me that it works? If it doesn’t work it’s my ass on the line, not yours.

If an outside person isn’t seeing the Ni connections, it’s usually because

A. The principles aren’t comprised of solely sensory parts, but also uses borrowed understandings from previously known concepts. Therefore the data isn’t sensory black and white.

B. Ni bridges larges gaps of understanding by assuming the correlation of its parts. Because of this, it needs the minimum amount of pieces to generate the singular working concept. This is one way Ni differs from Si. Si will want to have all of the sensory parts lined up in a row. Ni will have some sensory and non sensory parts lined up in a row, and will draw connections through the missing pieces.

After the principle is complete through either unconscious or conscious Ni, the working file is closed and that finished principle can now be applied to anything in the future.

Whenever I’m facing a really difficult challenge in life, I tell myself “everything I’ve ever done has prepared me to do exactly this”. All understanding is interchangeable. A particular situation may never apply to something you do in the future, but the concept behind what is happening almost always will.

For example, when I was a kid learning to ride a bike, I wasn’t just “learning how to ride a bike”. I was learning how to propel forward motion through applied energy.

Well, here I am, trying to illustrate my Unconscious Ni understanding of Ni on a sensory platform. I hope it made sense!

Balance - A Poem

Balance - A Poem

Stop Thinking Ahead

Stop Thinking Ahead