Understanding INFJ Intuition
“I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.”
– Baruch Spinoza, INFJ
INFJs live in a world of quiet introspection and imagination. They have an uncanny ability to see through people, situations, and words to find hidden meanings, motives, and outcomes. They care very little about how something appears to be on the surface but instead try to peer deeply into what something means, what its essence or core truth is.
INFJs are known for their strong insights about people and situations. They get these insights through the use of their dominant cognitive function, Introverted Intuition. They also are extremely aware of people’s emotions and moods. This combination of skills means that an INFJ can easily pick up on even the slightest mood changes and inconsistencies in behavior and then intuitively grasp what may be bothering a person. They are constantly aware of other people’s body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions to pick up on hidden meanings, motives, or feelings. This can give them an aura of seeing “through” someone, and it helps them to deeply empathize with and understand others. It also makes them excellent counselors, therapists, and social workers.
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Are INFJs “Psychic”?
As far as being psychic, the INFJ can’t read minds or literally see into someone’s future. They rely on their advanced intuition to scan through loads of sensory information and grasp patterns and connections that give them clues about what may happen in the future. They are much better at determining future outcomes than many other types, but it isn’t because of any magical ability, it’s simply the way the INFJs mind is programmed. This is where we get into really understanding INFJ Introverted Intuition.
What Is Introverted Intuition?
Introverted Intuition (Ni) is the most advanced and utilized function of the INFJ. This is what I like to call their “superpower” function. Ni gives them the ability to find meanings and connections behind things and then to connect the dots of those clues into a future-oriented response. Why is this here? What does this mean? What does this tell me about the future? These questions pervade the INFJ’s existence. INFJs have a tendency to always look forward and to always decipher what current information can tell them about a future outcome.
One of the best ways to understand Introverted Intuition is to compare it to its opposite; Introverted Sensing. While Introverted Sensing is focused primarily on storing personal impressions from concrete data and learning from it, Introverted Intuition is focused on connecting impressions or patterns from current experience and unconscious data to form a forecast of what is yet to come. This is why INFJs, INTJs, ENFJs, and ENTJs will focus a lot on future ideas and outcomes and ISTJs, ISFJs, ESFJs, and ESTJs will hold on more to the past and teachers from the past. Ni users will focus more on theories and impressions and Si users will focus more on literal details and facts.
How Do INFJs Get Their Intuitive “Hunches”?
INFJs combine Introverted Intuition (Ni) with Extraverted Sensing (Se). Extraverted Sensing gathers copious amounts of sensory information from the external world that is then stored in a web of information inside the INFJ’s mind. Using Introverted Intuition, the INFJ scans through all of the information, connecting dots, seeing which patterns manifest themselves, and interpreting all the clues to formulate a projection of what may happen further on down the road. The Extraverted Feeling (Fe) of the INFJ also helps the INFJ to determine any underlying emotions and feelings that a person may be experiencing to project an accurate insight into what someone is going through or how they may emotionally respond to something.
Much of this intuitive process is done in a nearly unconscious way by the INFJ. This is why many of their revelations may seem to appear “out of the blue.” They themselves may not even realize in the moment how they received these insights, but after careful consideration, they are able to understand how the different clues led them to their insight.
Dario Nardi explains it well in his book The Neuroscience of Personality
“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).”
Someone with strong Introverted Intuition may sense that something doesn’t feel right with someone they know; they are extremely adept at interpreting body language and vocal tones to discover if anything seems out of the ordinary or betrays any underlying emotions. They collect all this information and then their mind, nearly unconsciously, reflects on it to determine what it means, connecting all the significant details that, to others, might have gone unnoticed. The INFJ, in turn, may experience an “aha!” moment of suddenly understanding what is wrong with the person who showed what to others may seem as a barely recognizable difference from normal behavior.
INFJs and Symbolism
Another aspect of Introverted Intuition is that it is extremely visual in nature. INFJs see very striking images in their mind and tend to understand things through the use of symbols, archetypes, illustrations, and abstract terms. When Ni-dominant types explain something they rely largely on these symbols as well as patterns, and metaphors. This means it can be much harder for a Ni-dominant INFJ or INTJ to explain something in a way that makes sense to a Sensor, who relies on literal interpretations; what something looked like, felt like, and sounded like in exact detail.
For example, a sensor might look at a chain and think “Chains are made of metal. They are only as strong as their weakest link. I remember using chains to tie down cargo on flatbed trailers.” An INFJ might see a chain and think; “This chain symbolizes slavery and domination, subservience to me. Why is this chain here?” While the sensor sees the chain for what it literally is and for its utilitarian purpose, the INFJ sees a symbol of what the chain means. They also question why the chain is there in the first place, whereas the sensor might just put it back where it belongs.
INFJs rarely take things at face value, which is why they may seem to always have a contemplative, analytical appearance. When you say something to an INFJ, while they hear what you say, they don’t really accept the words coming out of your mouth as the entirety of your message. They look at your eyes, your body language, your tone of voice, connect to your past and then try to determine what you really mean. This can make the INFJ prone to overanalyzing, but often their insights are very accurate.
There’s a lot more I could write about INFJ Introverted Intuition, but this post hopefully gives you the basics in a way that is easy to understand! In the future we’ll talk about how Introverted Intuition progresses and changes throughout childhood, adolescence, middle age, and beyond.
Do you have any questions?
I’d love to hear from you! Give me your thoughts in the comments or contact me on Facebook!
Find out more about your personality type in our eBooks, Discovering You: Unlocking the Power of Personality Type, The INFJ – Understanding the Mystic, and The INFP – Understanding the Dreamer. You can also connect with me via Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter!
Other Articles You Might Enjoy:
10 Intuition Hacks for INFJs and INTJs
10 Stress-Busting Tips for INFJs
The 5 Biggest Misconceptions About INFJs
That is a very accurate description. It can be frustrating to be an INFJ sometimes. All the wonderful thoughts, information, and insights seem so important to me, yet others just blow them off and tell me I’m being too analytical. It is like they are looking at the world in black and white and not seeing all the vivid and beautiful colors.
Susan D.
I completely agree with you! It’s very hard when we see a clue, can tell it’s leading to somewhere specific, try to talk about it either as a warning or encouragement and it’s blown off as having no basis in “reality”. I think since INFJs make up such a small percentage of the population it’s a bit easier for us to end up in situations where we are misunderstood or our strengths aren’t recognized.
It’s true. I often get frustrated when people simply sweep my concerns or suggestions aside because they could not understand my analogies. After that when my insights are proven they would engage me again but I would no longer be interested to pursue the matters.
Now I should write something to praise ur wisdom but u censored all messages, u dont like, so I write nothing, u lil bitch.
Hi Gizmo! I’m very confused. I haven’t censored any messages, in fact I don’t think it’s possible for me to change or edit other people’s comments on wordpress. I’m not sure what the problem is – but I’m willing to listen if you’d like to explain it.
This is very well written. I agree that it is not easy being an INFJ. There are many things we see that others don’t. We feel so deeply and are able to grasp hidden meaning and possibilities. But after all, I love being unique.
Thank you Teera for reading and sharing your perspective! It can be very isolating to be an INFJ, but I agree with you, that I wouldn’t change it 🙂
Nice article.
Thank you!! Glad you enjoyed it 🙂
Any thoughts on being able to articulate a foreseen outcome? I often call it out and get the pish posh, only to be able to say I told you so later after being ignored.
Hi Susan! Do you believe someone can start out with a different personality type as a teenager but life’s journey and experience change you as you get older and therefore your changes your personality type as well?
I constantly get “hunches” about people and people always look at me like I’m crazy. I once told a friend at school that there was something wrong with the guy she was dating and it was a bad idea, but I didn’t really even know him so she got mad at me for telling her not to date him. He just rubbed me the wrong way. About a month later, he was expelled from our school and my friend revealed all the issues he had. This is just one instance. I get hunches about people ALL the time, like daily. Growing up, I was constantly told that “judging people” was wrong and whatever I felt about people initially was something to be shamefull about, especially since I could never come up with reasons why I thought people were paricularly good or bad. Even when I was little, I felt extremely guilty about it because I thought I was judging and assuming things that may not be true. When I found out I was an INFJ, it helped me to umderstand myself. This blog really helped too! It’s good to know I am not doing something wrong (assuming, judging) when a person or circumstance rubs me a certain way, and that I might actually be right!
I have this condition. I find it both a blessing and a curse. Mine of course was further enhanced due to abuse and I developed it to a fine honed edge by intensely watching people’s body language and voice inflections so I would know when and if I should escape a situation to protect myself from more harm. It got so bad, so intense that I had to force myself to stop to a degree because I was isolating myself so I wouldn’t have to see scorn or a ridiculing face when someone looked my way. I’ve used it purely for self defense. People have even told me that I made them nervous because of my quietness and watchful nature! Imagine that! ?
Loved this article. I feel I am an infj as I fit nearly all the attributes but I have a problem with over analyzing which causes me to often doubt my intuitions which according to what I have read I should trust way more. I’m often unsure of almost every decision I make that may just be the people pleasing aspect of this type but it causes me a lot of suffereing as I can’t seem to get out of my own way
Someone finally said social work!
Love this article. Growing up around mostly sensor types I was always told that I make things up, because there are no tangible facts. Even when I’m right they say it was a coincidence. I even started to ignore my intuition which is the worst thing to do. Now that I am a mom I know it’s real. I’m a better mom because of it. My son says I have superpowers. It’s great to read these facts about how the infj types take in information. Thank you!
Most definitely interesting to know how its done. Great read!
Hahahaha. Growing up my kids always wondered how I knew, I always told them to nevermind how, just know that I will find out, and lamented that they couldn’t get away with anything. I didn’t know I was INFJ until recently, so even I had no idea. I was able to pick up on things that others didn’t and always wondered why they’d overlooked something, that to me, was so obvious. Creeps them and my husband out when I pick something up over the phone. You know, a tone, or unusual pattern in their speech.
Nice post.. You have differentiate between sensor n intuitive clearly.. I can see how my mind working now.. =)
I am an infj……text book it would seem..its like someone opened up my mind and saw what i saw and understood it..i was blown away when i first took the test and realized all the answers that i had been seking were clear to me ..but i need to talk to others like are most inf’s empaths?
Every time I see an article that proclaims the INFJs vaunted mystical intuitive ability to ‘predict’ the future actions of others I roll my eyes. This supposed infj functional ability is the one single reason non infjs would type themselves as infj in my opinion. It attracts the tarot card hand reading crowd who quite clearly are not of the infj variety. Yes really. As an infj male (a minority of a minority) I pride myself on my dominant intuitions intellectual interests in mechanical inventiveness, general creativity, interest in science, history, philosophy, theology. I don’t like this association with fluffy mysticism and to be honest I dont think that is an infj thing. Sorry if my bluntness offends.
A fantastic article and very informative. However, I think that INFJs gifts and talents are profoundly underrated.
INFJs are extremely intelligent multipotentialites and their extraordinary capabilities to swiftly shift from one character to an entirely another personality is the result of their multipotentialites.
Our multipotentialites seem to go unchecked over and over:-)
Well, this article is something else. You just described amazingly well how my mind operates!
I have thought myself as sort of a detective who sees the hidden cues and easily connects the dots. No wonder why I always liked to watch those kind of series. I have been more of an observer in my life than a participant, I like to know what makes people and things tick and I observe from the sidelines.
Almost nothing else has been more important for me than finding out the truth and I’ve become quite good at it. Also people’s eyes tell way more than they would even like to believe… They tell almost everything. It actually used to be quite hard for me to look people in the eyes when I was younger before because the sensory input was almost too much (besides being shy). Then again, I’m highly sensitive to the energies and nuances around me so I feel everything and my intuition has grown really sharp, of course I have my intellect too, but I would say that the intuition which is almost uncanny in it’s ability to “know” things is a big factor when it comes to understanding things. Even at the risk of sounding superficial I do take pride in that and I think it is my best ability besides my ability to empathize and care about other living beings. Other than that I’m humble and don’t like to make a number about myself.
It seems that many of us INFJ’s are able to cut through the illusory veil of this reality with ease. There’s more to this life than the eyes can see and our human senses are still quite limited. I would suspect that many INFJ’s have great spiritual understanding and are fascinated by mysticism. I have often felt like an outsider who is trying to understand what being human is about, but it’s great to know that there are people like me out there. I think many of us are old souls. 🙂
Can completely relate to you. It’s a struggle to put out there what you think will connect people if people don’t buy in your intuitions. It just hard to explain most of the time and when I try to put facts to back my intuition, I get drained quickly. Reading this article and your comment, I just felt I need to write something here so we can be reminded there are people just like ourself struggling with the same situation…and it’s ok to be different. 🙂
Everything will be ok (my future prediction tells me haha)
All the love!
What you said about trying to validate your intuition with facts drains struck a chord with me. I am in a relationship with and ISTP and he is always badgering me for the facts. and just the facts. He seems amazed when I am correct about situation based on my intuition. In fact, I think our relationship is doomed because we drive each other nuts. LOL
Good Post but I’d see the chain as many perceptions to include its literal purpose. I’d say this is a rough way of explaining INFJ with a lot of good but some can be misleading. That being said I also see how the past teachers also connect with items of the present. I can then utilize these connections to validate with good reason about something. Yet if you explain these thing to others, they look at you as if your crazy! Also from my understanding of things, I can draw in connection of many patterns that work and provide a new way of doing something to ideally replace something that is function perhaps less than desired as it might relate to business activities. However I might be a chameleon or even where INFJ are rare x1 as roughly 5% of the population, I might be further rare x2 within this group. People really should see this explanation as a simplified way to understand INFJ but not full or a complete way to understand them. My abilities sometimes even have me questioning my methods. Also often I see how limited others perception of things are and it drives me nuts. Even the simplest of understandings, like putting yourself in another’s shoes.
I fully agree.
Thank you for writing this article. Lately, I’ve been feeling like I’m crazy for the way I connect things, but now I see that my brain just works differently.
Hi, okay, I had the best experience since the year started. Sorry I haven’t yet read your post but it seemed like it was talking about what I am going through right now. I just couldn’t wait, I tried registering to the personality cafe but the “prove you’re human thing” is not working. So this was my next best option because I just needed someone who can understand. It just happened whilst watching the Flash, actually it happens a lot when watching TV shows for some reason. You know when everything just connects and starts making sense, and thinking, you’ve cracked the code of the villains or the story-line or whatever. Intuition is so out of this world, I swear, it just made me feel like a genius for a second, but of course I had to come back down to earth, because Stephen Hawking lol. Anyways I love to know and be able to connect with other people who understand because it’s so real. That light bulb just switches on and it’s like you just connect all the dots of the situation. I don’t get to do this everyday, so when it happens I celebrate out of this world because then I can say, “yes, I believe in myself”.
I’ve read it now, thank you for the lovely posts.
Ha yea im an infj myself and yea youre right just look at someone just for a second and bam know them.
Does my INJF intuition can manifest itself during dreaming, in dreams (night)? Does my intuition can manifest itself in procognitive dreams?
Thank you, I can relate to all your information. I’ve only recently discovered my personality type and I find it’s answering many questions , but there is one question I’m still searching for the answers, I find that apart from absorbing someone else’s emotions, I’ve experienced that I can sense the feeling in which a book was written, if it was motivated by sadness, I can feel the sadness, I recently drove thru a street that has a Crime Museum, and the feelings I experience 20 years ago, when I visited this place in my school days came sweeping over me like a flood, I could remember the feelings of anguish, fear, anxiety and terror, today I realize that I was feeling the victims feelings possibly at the time of the murder, this is strange even to myself, but I’ve had other similar incidents. A few years back we were looking to buy a house and one of the houses we saw, the moment I stepped inside I felt this overwhelming feeling of fear and anguish, I asked the real estate agent if something had happened there because I could feel something was wrong, she then told me that a man lined up his family against the wall and shot them all and then himself. I wrestled with these intense feelings for days. I want to know if this is normal to sense this kind of thing.