Ni - Internal Field Dynamics (IFD)
Keywords: Essence, Hypostasis, Fundament, Inherence, Consilience, Emergence, Apperception, Gestalt, Holistic, Irreducible, Stochastic, Non-Linear, Cynosural, Nucleus, Attrahent, Coalescence, Focalization, Extractance, Distillation, Essentiation

I think Ni is more about perceiving the essences of things. Of phenomenon, trends, situations, people, etc. Ni will pick up on the fundamental gist of what something is or what's going on, and can infer the latent underlying patterns present. Ni perception has a holographic property to how it operates, whereby upon becoming aware of any 'part', Ni allows you to recognize the 'whole' that it's a constituent of. The perception may not completely clear at first encounter, but there will often at least be some vague inclination or instinct present that will eventually ferment into a crystallized clarity.

The process by which Ni works as it does isn't really something that avails itself to deductive analysis where one can map themselves going from point A to B and can tell why they perceive whatever it is (in contrast, I notice that Ne *can* do this about itself). With Ni, it seems that the process is very non-linear and discontinuous, consisting of a lot fuzzy, chaotic, disparate leaps that occur just under the hood of the consciousness... that is, one doesn't have much direct cognizant access to it as it's happening. And the resultant perceptions rendered from all of this will more or less spontaneously percolate into one's awareness in a peculiarly emergent fashion. Sometimes it all happens in a fraction of a second (ideal for crisis situations), other times it can take many days, weeks, or months.

As one becomes aware of a situation, a person, or a problem you're trying to solve... whatever it is, it's as though Ni receives a large packet of information about whatever it is that one is perceiving, all at once. It hits you instantly, as though your Ni is trying to "tell" you something, and there's a distinctive quality of knowingness about the information you receive. And you may not know exactly what it's telling you yet... but nevertheless, you have a vague impression, sense, "feeling," or instinct of the end, essence, or totality of whatever it is you're perceiving. Other times it might come through imagery of a symbolic/metaphorical nature, or just free-flowing dynamic visualizations that describe something to you when you look at them. Usually, it will be a bit "unrefined" at first, but something definite is certainly there. You know the conclusion well before you know the steps it's going to take to get there. Sometimes you kind of have to let it evolve and unfold until it becomes clearer. Or maybe start teasing it apart with Fe or Te to begin organizing it and turning it into something coherent.

The person cannot really say how they know, but only that they know. And the more that is a dominant feature of one's psychological functioning, the more it seems that one's ability to communicate these things dissolves into a haze of apparent ineffability that would just be a semblance of senselessness to most. Obviously this can be a major downside. In Ni-INXps and Ni-ENXjs and some others, you'll notice them saying more things like, "I dunno how I know, but I know! I can't explain it, just trust me alright?" And having more prevailing usage of indirect metaphor, idiosyncratic cliches, strange idioms, synecdoches, and metonymies in their speech - especially when describing things. Between others of similar enough type, the meanings are easily conveyed. Try to talk about these things to those without or those whose is not as developed, and they'll likely find themselves the voice of one crying alone in the wilderness. I notice that intensive makes a lot of the Alphas/Deltas very uncomfortable, probably in the same sort of vein that their would make Betas/Gammas uncomfortable. This is especially true of Xe-ESXjs and Xi-INXjs, many of whom will often respond with hostile self-righteous condemnation against someone using significant . And they will say things like "No, you can't know that!" "You have no right to say that!" "You are a crazy idiot!" Etc.