Does everyone on the Ne-Si axis see multiple possibilities, even the Ne inferiors?
Yes, although with Ne inferior, it depends on how much the ISJ values Ne and/or sees themselves as a creative person. Sometimes an ISJ will shut down because they need to change their life, and it feels like there are too many options, and choosing just one could cause them to miss out on something even better. But yes, Ne always expands. Always. It wants more options, more possibilities, more creativity, more things to think about, more possible reasons, just more. The higher the Ne, the easier it is to cycle through possibilities without holding onto any of them too tightly; the lower the Ne, the more difficult it is to change trajectories quickly.
Ne in its purest form is… total ease with new thinking and ways of thinking, which is why ENPs cycle through so many belief systems and possibilities and interpretations and abandon them for the next thought; inferior Ne doesn’t want to let go of what matters to Si and the judging function, so it is a lot slower and more reluctant to embrace “unusual” thinking that threatens what they care about (if I believe this, I have to let go of that, and that has served me well).
JUNGIAN COGNITIVE FUNCTIONS ARE REALLY NEUROTRANSMITTERS
Dopamine (Ne) is all about exploration, novelty, and active engagement with the world. It’s testing, experimenting, seeing what works, and staying open to multiple perspectives in real time. It’s "what if" thinking, bouncing between ideas, trying them out, and learning through trial and error. This is why the dopamine pathway is short and reactive, driving people to act quickly and be highly responsive to stimuli.
Acetylcholine (Ni) is much more about conception, depth, and refinement. It’s about filtering through possibilities, refining, and finding the most efficient path. This is more about a long-term vision, where you discount distractions and focus on what’s likely to work based on deep internal understanding. Like Ni, acetylcholine works with refined material, builds on past knowledge, and strives for clarity over time. Quality control over quantity. The pathway is longer, as it requires more time for reflection and synthesis.
Norepinephrine (Se) = Sensory Engagement / External Stimulation:
Norepinephrine is often about stimulation, arousal, and action in the present moment, which matches Se's focus on immediate sensory input and the world outside. Se engages directly with external stimuli, maximizing the sensory experience—seeing, hearing, touching, and reacting to what's right in front of them, seeking novel or impactful experiences. Norepinephrine similarly drives people to engage with their surroundings, often seeking intensity and excitement. Both want to be in the moment and responsive to the environment.
GABA = Si (Introverted Sensing):
GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter, meaning it calms down neural activity and contributes to a sense of stability, relaxation, and grounding. This is highly similar to Si, which is about internal sensory recall, stability, and creating a grounded mental state based on past experiences. Just like Si helps us process and stabilize memories and experiences, GABA contributes to calmness and internal balance.
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Ooops. Clickbait. Only the perceiving functions can be directly associated with neurotransmitters but here is why:
Perceiving functions (Ne, Ni, Se, Si) are more fundamental in terms of information gathering and conceptualizing because they deal with raw data, sensory input, and ongoing experience. These are processes that happen almost automatically and are more closely tied to the REACTIONS of the brain to immediate stimuli, which is where neurotransmitters like dopamine, norepinephrine, GABA, and serotonin come into play.
Judging functions, on the other hand, are higher-order, more abstract, and deal with organizing, categorizing, and deciding how to act on the information the perceiving functions gather. These processes tend to be more cognitive, involving more logical, computational thinking (yes, fi too!), which requires less direct chemical input and is mediated by higher-level brain areas like the prefrontal cortex. They are more internalized, less reactive to real-time input, and more about evaluating and controlling the data.
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But hey! If you really twist my arm, I could associate Fi with serotonin and Fe with oxytocin.
When it comes to Te and Ti, all I can think of is the lack of serotonin and oxytocin. You lack love, you are less moody, you think more robotic, sticking to the facts as opposed to idealistic or personal or communal values.
Here is the difference between introverted intuition and extraverted intuition and how you can tell them apart.
Each perceiving function represents a particular lens or filter through which we interpret the world around us.
These two perceiving functions, Ne and Ni, both represent a style of perception that favors abstraction over the literal.
However, there are key distinctions.
Observation through Introverted Intuition looks for the connections, meanings, implications and potential outcomes behind what it observes.
It gives less attention to physical details and is less aware of its surroundings in general.
Because its focus is on reading between the lines or looking ahead to the future, it renders itself somewhat disengaged and detached from the present moment.
Extraverted Intuition by contrast is more interactive with the world around it, using it as fodder for its own machinations.
Ne is less interested in trying to read beneath the surface, predict outcomes or interpret meanings. Rather, it draws inspiration from what it observes and reacts in creative ways.
It looks for opportunities to use ingenuity, apply imagination, and explore new ideas. While Ni is busy trying to decode the world, Ne is harvesting metaphorical gems from it.
Put simply, Ni is intuition looking for potential outcomes, while Ne looks for generative possibilities.
My roommate is INTP and I’m INFP. Our favorite thing to do together is riff and bicker. I never thought I’d meet someone more careless and absent-minded than me. He’s also an only child, so I’m helping him speedrun the older sibling experience (little sibling bothering is like a vitamin, is my opinion. He needs it). We’re having a great time lmao
Lmao, that is awesome. My most off-the-wall conversations have always been with other high Ne-users who are able to weirdly and accurately match my energy with off-the-cuff riffing. Non-Ne-users will often listen in and be like "I have NO idea what they're talking about", but we are always like, right on the same page, despite everything that we're talking about being so convoluted in that trademark Ne kind of way.
I've had my fair share of INFP friends give me the older sibling experience (I'm also an only child - is you roommate me? lmao); I wonder if that's a common dynamic. Glad you guys are having fun; I think getting the Ne gang together is always a blast!
all was summarized & translated and from DDCTipologias (<3333)
There is a tendency to oversimplify what Extraverted Intuition (Ne) really is as a function and manifestation. To fully understand it, it is necessary to comprehend both intuition and the extroverted attitude and their mechanisms. Ne operates in the realm of irrationality, that is, of Jungian perception, orienting itself towards how it perceives the world. This text proposes to define Ne and its perception mechanism to avoid misunderstandings, highlighting its manifestations without exaggerating its presence as something common or exclusive to a niche.
Extraverted Intuition perceives the world in an abstract and objective way, focusing on hypotheses, ideas, and associations. For the Ne user, everything is possible and interesting when it represents hypothetical potentialities. Ideas emerge easily, always exploring what lies beyond concrete experience, such as patterns and trends. Ne continuously feeds on new associations, prioritizing the abstract over the pragmatic. Its objective nature engages with the external world, but without being tied down to sensory experience; the focus is on exploring possibilities and expanding the field of ideas.
Extraverted Intuition (Ne) operates in an expansive and superficial manner, generating hypotheses without deepening them. It prefers to explore new possibilities rather than fixating on a single idea, akin to someone who sows trees without worrying about cultivating them. The potential tree is more interesting than the real tree. Ne seeks potentialities, transgressing rules and itself, which makes it prone to inconsistency. Its focus constantly shifts, leading to the reevaluation of ideas and projects. This irrational function does not follow a clear judgment process and easily accepts the absurd and the lack of meaning, without clinging to fixed meanings.
Extraverted Intuition tends to seek the unusual and transgress ideas for the mere act of transgression. This search can be superficial, focusing on testing hypotheses and exploring the eccentric without an aesthetic goal, aiming only to break boundaries. Ideas connect quickly, with little dedication to any single one, as long as they represent something new. Despite being an extroverted function, Ne can distance itself from social engagement, as its focus lies in the realm of ideas, which can lead its users to have a lower need for concrete interaction with people. Nonetheless, there is an impulse to share these ideas with the external world. This phenomenon is even more pronounced in extroverted Ne users (ENxP and ESxJ) due to the objective nature of their ways of interacting with the world. It is common for these four types to express enjoyment in sharing ideas on “any subject,” although they do so differently. Ne operates similarly to brainstorming, appreciating the exchange of hypotheses and speculations in a superficial manner. Ne users enjoy exploring multiple ideas and connections, either in groups or alone, through mind maps. This function tends to continuously expand associations, leading to complexity and, at times, complication. Ne is skilled at dealing with complexity, but this same skill can result in making things more complicated than necessary.
Extraverted Intuition (Ne) can generate broad identification due to cultural influence, such as on social media, making it important to differentiate what Ne truly is. Although it is a generic cognitive function that can manifest in unpredictable ways, there are observable patterns in its use. Confusion between types is common, especially among xNxP and others, which is why it is necessary to draw a clear picture of the function. Even in its most complex and dominant use, Ne is seen as superficial, but this term should not be misinterpreted. Users of low Ne (xSxJ) may perceive it as "shallow" because they use it practically, such as in brainstorming sessions or social interactions. The popularity of concepts related to Ne facilitates identification with it. However, for those with high Ne, especially dominant, the exploration of ideas, despite seeming superficial, is conducted in a deep and complex manner, being central to their worldview.
The intellectual manifestations of Extraverted Intuition (Ne) tend to add complexity to the world, dealing with a vast field of ideas and associations. The Chaos Theory, which studies complex and dynamic systems, illustrates this quest to understand interactions that provoke changes over time. This theory is deterministic, focusing on predicting developments in complex systems, in contrast to teleology, which suggests a preferred and predetermined direction (which could be more associated with an introverted character). Thus, Ne shares this objective character by speculating about associations and developments in complex contexts, rejecting excessive simplifications. There are theoretical and practical approaches that connect with Ne, such as the role of trendsetters in fashion, who speculate about complex variables to identify trends. Additionally, the Socratic method, which is based on continuous questioning to deconstruct established ideas, also relates to Ne. The facilitator of this method presents various ideas and connections, generating doubts rather than definitive solutions, which expands the complexity of the world and concepts, reflecting the irrational and abstract nature of Extraverted Intuition.
The relationship that each MBTI perception function has with the PAST - Explanation EN
It is very common to think that talking about your memories of the past is just something exclusive to the Introverted Sensing (Si) function, however, anyone can talk about their past. The difference lies in the relationship that each function establishes with it, in the way it describes, feels... In this sense, I will try to explain how each perceptive function observes its past, with examples to facilitate the understanding of the concepts.
Introverted Sensation (Si)
The Si has a very strong relationship with its memories. Every part of their experience (the ones that are important to them) is collected and stored for later use when they feel the need. The difference between Si and other functions is that its connection is strictly strong with the OBJECTS of the event.
For example: Suppose that as a child, the user of Si went for a walk with his sister. This would be the last day he would be together with her before his sister moved out of the country and didn't come home.
The user of Si remembers several details of the event: the stores he visited with his sister, the way his sister dressed, the color of her blouse, her straightened hair, the little chain she had in her hand, who the saleswoman was where she bought one bracelet... When she returns to that location again, Si is instantly teleported to this memory. Walking into the same stores makes him think of his sister, looking at the saleswoman makes him think of his sister. This is the strong link between the Si and the objects of the event.
Si is subjective, because his perception of things is internalized in his own perception of events. The seller is not just a mere seller, but someone very important in his affective memory. For other people, this salesperson is someone who sells things, for this Si user, this salesperson means the last moments he spent with his sister.
These users create a unique comparative sense of today with past events by intimately linking to objects. The car in particular can bring them different sensations, because it is what he inherited from his late father. The church is not just a church, but the place of your first marriage. The objects bring affective memories to these users who manage, in a splendid way, to recreate sensations of that moment, when they come into contact with these same objects again.
User Si does NOT remember everything. They are not a memory machine. You don't need to have an extraordinary memory to be a Si user. It is very common for other functions to remember more events than Si users. This is due to other functions vaguely remembering many EVENTS, but Si remembers SPECIFIC moments with many DETAILS. (*Internalize this. This information helps a lot while typing*).
Introverted Intuition (Ni)
Ni has a distant relationship with his past. He remembers the events, but is not the protagonist of his memories. It is as if your observation is in third person. Events are just events with no affective emotional connection to objects. What is important for the Ni user is the thematic connection of different events, they remind the essence of things, a general idea of something. Details are excluded, because something much bigger is being sketched.
Using the same example as above, Ni will focus on the essence of the event. The objects (materiality) are there as a mere representation of something bigger, because the essence (what is “between the lines”: what you cannot see, touch, smell...) is what matters to them. And this essence of the event for Ni can be several, for example, the focus on the feeling of sadness or joy, the farewell, the abandonment. Ni feels these sensations coursing through him as he brings up his memory. This is why users of this role are known for metaphors and abstractions, as concepts are an important part of their personal perception.
They can remember many events, but some events are confusing. Maybe they didn't even exist. The Ni user only cares about the connection of events, not the events themselves, which is why many details are lost along the way, which can make the Ni user think they remember things that, in fact, they didn't. User Ni's memories are general, global, somewhat superficial.
This is a good way to differentiate Ni from Si. Ni stores general aspects of his memories and cares about the thematic essence of the situation. Si stores detailed aspects of specific events, and cares about memory objects that have personal emotional affective meaning for them.
Si FOCUS on the elements of the event and internalize their personal meanings to these objects (her sister's bracelet, the things she observed during the tour, the stores, the clothes, the people...)
Ni FOCUS on the concept/essence of the situation (feelings, actions, state...).
Extraverted Sensation (Se)
User Se has a distant connection to the past. This is because the Se user likes to take advantage of current opportunities, current trends, which automatically distances him from what has passed. However, like everyone else, they remember past events, but for them, the objects of events are not important (Si), the essence of the event (Ni) is also not important. User remembers events exactly as they happened.
Still using the same example above, the user of Se, when describing this memory, reproduces it faithfully to reality. The Se user is LITERAL and OBJECTIVE when describing events, which means that it will say exactly what was actually happening.
For example, he could describe the day as “I went into some stores with my sister, we had a lot of fun, we bought ice cream, we went to the movies...”. The difference from the Se to the Si is that the Se is described without details, being concrete and not personal. This means that he has no object relations when he remembers the past. It doesn't bring that air of “intimacy” with the elements, because it's a day that has passed, and other opportunities will come. However, the Si is concrete and puts a personal meaning in the memory, which means that the elements seen (shops, ice cream, the cinema...) have affective meanings for the Si. When he observes these objects again, his memory already associates the object with this event in a personal way.
The user of Se, being extremely realistic, can remember events faithfully, something that Ni/Si cannot. This happens because the Si remembers what matters TO HIM, the Ni focuses on the theme and can easily forget about concrete elements that were seen, but the Se focuses on the general and is concrete, which offers a more accurate/objective description of the events of the than other functions.
Extraverted Intuition (Ne)
User Ne looks at the past as an entry point to new possibilities. The Ne user likes to explore the different, the new, what can happen... This leads Ne to see the past very sensitively, but with great underlying potential.
Following the example above, the Ne user would be the type of person who would think about the “what if” of the event. “What if I had done it differently? What if that day had never existed? What if my sister and I were still together? And if?". Si remains in the affective memory of the situation, Ni explores the thematic field of the situation, Se faithfully describes the situation, while Ne looks for the possibilities that could arise if things were different and other choices were made. It's as if Ne's mind is a game of choices, and he can think of possible situations that could have happened.
That's why it's wrong to say that Ne doesn't care about the past, in fact, he cares about these memories, but uses them to see the potentials that could arise if things were simply different, exploring different scenarios of the same situation.
Another example
Event: The day my friend and I were waiting for the bus right after class.
Si: "I remember that day. He was wearing a necklace he got from his mother. The sky was almost darkening, but the stars had already started to appear. The bus, however, was taking a while, but I'm glad that happened because I got to spend a lot of time talking to my friend. We talked about everything: what he would like to do in college, how much he hates his older brother, and the pressure his mother puts on him to finish his studies. The years go by and I still can't look at that bus stop without thinking about the first time we talked about the future."
Si:
* Affective-emotional relationship with objects from the past;
*Focus on event details;
*Internalized subjective perception of what was observed in the presented event.
Ni: "That moment was about falling in love. Falling in love for the first time. I think the universe does calculations like math students. Everything is so premeditated. The bus delay and this person next to me, everything had to be exactly as it has been. Well... I keep thinking, first times are weird as fuck, aren't they? You've never been through something like this before, here comes a spark of courage you didn't know you had. You try to do it right, but in end of the journey, you just want to come back at that exact moment, when that courage had not yet awakened. Not at that moment."
Ni:
*Thematic exploration of events, instead of exploring concrete elements;
*What matters is the essence of the event, everything is part of something “bigger”;
*Details and object are irrelevant. There is no connection of the "I" with the past;
*Use of metaphors, comparisons, abstractions.
Se: "My friend and I were at the bus stop waiting to go home. The bus stop was full of people. The bus took a while that day but when it arrived I felt relieved because I was tired and he told me that too Oh, speaking of him, he's nice, isn't he? I felt at that moment that I liked him more than I should. I haven't seen him in years."
Se:
*Concrete/literal/objective description of the event (external);
*Does not focus on details;
*There is no affective-emotional factor with the elements of the event.
Ne: "I was waiting for the bus with my friend and that was the moment we got to know each other best. I fell in love with him, and years later we started dating. But I still ask myself: what if I had skipped class that day? Had the bus arrived early? We wouldn't have had the time we had to talk to each other. Maybe we never had the courage to question what we question each other. The craziest thing would be if it was someone else in that place. My life would be completely different These options make life so much more fun, don't you think? I mean... if I just didn't fall in love with him, who would I be with right now? Would I be as happy as I am today?"
Ne:
*No affective-emotional relationship with the concrete objects of the memory;
*Explore different and new possibilities of the situations that happened;
*The event itself is not that relevant, but the inherent possibilities that could have arisen from it.
**Important: TRAUMA should not be considered when typing. We all have traumas and memories so strong that we simply want to forget. The feeling of “being stuck in the past” is not unique to Si and inferior Si users. Note other elements during character analysis.**
Fun Fact : I submitted this for my visual art club assignment and made up a whole story without people knowing this is an interpretation of Introverted Intuition Function
Anyway i should give a lil bit of story
The Unconscious Mind
A special hidden part of the mind, hidden away from everyone else and can only be accessed by intuitive functions such as Ni and Ne. This dimension is abstract, barren, and doesn’t have much of a physical form. If any other function try to access this place they would likely fall into the deep abyss bellow.
There is nothing there but a giant clock tower and pieces of debris floating in a dark empty space. The clock represents the flow of time in the mindscape, a universal clock if you will. This clock is how the user perceives time, you know how when you’re bored this clock will ticks slower and when you’re having fun this clock ticks a lot faster. So this “mind clock” doesn’t ticks the same way our real life time does, it changes based on our perception of time. Ni likes to hang around here, it’s very quiet here where other functions can’t access it and it also taps a lot into my own fear of running out of time.
Under stress many “Holes” opens up in this place as well. What are these holes represent? Perhaps the instability of the mind undergoing stressful times. I don’t really know where these holes lead into either.
You know how sometimes you just “know” things. Sometimes things comes intuitively to you. I pulled some inspiration from that definition of intuition that is
"perception via the unconscious"
and conclude there needs to be a place for the intuitive functions to make up these perceptions and ideas from.
Also a fun Reference sheet remade of Ni i made for this :
