The True Nature of Introverted Sensing (Si)

Introverted Sensing, or Si, seems to be a function that both gets a lot of flak for being boring, basic, and easy to understand, but also gets completely mischaracterized and misunderstood. You may have heard it said, generically speaking, that Si essentially chalks up to memory or remembering things. People claim that its detailed nature more or less equates to it being a concrete memory storage of sorts. They base this off of the fact that Si tends to concern itself with concrete details in the world. However, this is honestly a misunderstanding of what Si is actually doing and mixing up the resulting behaviors with the actual process, using anecdotes and stereotypes as evidence.

Have you ever noticed that Si descriptions tend to be shorter and less detailed than all the rest of the functions? That people usually throw out brief one note explanations of the function and how it works? It’s no wonder people tend toward thinking Si is a boring function. So, why is this? Why is it that no one can seem to come up with any explanation of Si that isn’t either completely basic, or is so abstracted that it doesn’t resemble the user’s everyday use of the function?

There are a few reasons, but before I delve too far into that, I need to explain something. Functions come in pairs, and one cannot exist or be used without working in tandem with the other. Si happens to be paired with Ne, so you get an Si-Ne or Ne-Si pairing as a result.

Part of the reason Si descriptions are so short is because there is a portion of Si characteristics that are being misattributed to Ne. One must remember that Ne is an objective function and deals only with the external world. So, any Ne descriptions describing Ne as a giant inner web of connections is wrong. Ne can recognize and pinpoint patterns and possibilities in the outer world, but where it has to do with a rich inner world of imagination or impression, that is, in fact, the domain of Si.

So, one may ask, why is it then that the Ne doms tend to be more creative than the Si doms? To which I would answer:
1. That’s a stereotype.
2. Creativity is separate from type.
3. The lower Si is in your stack the greater it will stray from lining up with reality.

Si is a perception function. It controls your internal perception of the sensory (physical) world around you. To say that Si just remembers a bunch of physical details is skipping a bunch of in-between steps, and it isn’t actually what is going on. Si is not noting the real, actual, external details. If it was, it would be Se. Remember: Si is internal. What Si is actually noting is its personal internal impression of the real world. In other words, what dominant Si presents to the user is a very realistic fake, or you could also call it a recreation of reality.

Si dominants tend to faithfully recreate the world as it is, but it is always colored by personal experiences. All of reality is being overlayed with the user’s subjective impressions about people, things, events, and etc. However, this is so natural and automatic for an Si dom, and usually so close to objective reality, that this process tends to go unnoticed without having the proper understanding of cognitive functions and how they operate. This mischaracterization isn’t something that even we at Practical Typing are completely free of doing.

Jung gives a very exaggerated view of Si and how it operates in his book that I initially found extremely unrelatable. He described it as a complete warping and twisting of the physical world into something completely unrecognizable as the real thing. He said that the work of an Si artist would be completely unfaithful to the actual scene to which they were trying to replicate. Instead, it would be overshadowed by implicated tone and personal bias that would give the scene a completely unrelated feel.

Why is it that there is so much dissonance between Jung’s description, and what we tend to see in regular, everyday Si doms? I believe it is because Jung was painting a picture of unhealthy, extreme, or unbalanced Si use. I do believe, that in most dominant Si users, reality and their impression of reality tend to line up very closely, so much so that any tiny alterations that their Si has made to actual reality go entirely unnoticed to the Si user. In this way, Si doms learn to trust that their perception of reality is true; and when people challenge it, they will tend to defy them and claim the other person is remembering things wrong. In some cases, it may be true; but in others, the Si user could simply have an impression of reality that doesn’t line up with actual reality. However, they will not be able to distinguish any difference. There will be no difference to them between when the other person remembered wrong, and when their perception isn’t lining up because those modifications are so subtle.

As you see Si go down the stack, however, the impressions and modifications to reality become greater, wilder, and much harder to deny. A dominant Si user’s most common way of tampering with reality is the minimizing or magnifying of flaws. An Si dom may see a horse, but either idealize it by deleting out tiny flaws or demonize the horse by magnifying insignificant flaws, not seeing reality for what it is either way. Meanwhile, an inferior Si user may see a unicorn where the horse should be. So, those like the ENFP and INFP get the reputation for living in a fantasy world when Si is used in a weak or underdeveloped way. Due to low Si, their internal Si impression of reality might very well be used to create a fantasy land similar to that which Jung described. So, as we see here, Si has nothing to do with memory, but rather one’s internal impression of physical reality.

Placement in the stack tends to influence how far from reality the Si user’s internal idealized (perfect) image of how something should be is. So, think about a Si dominant desiring an unrealistically immaculate house in the suburbs vs. Si inferior wanting to live in a magical fairy forest. This, of course, is being heavily exaggerated for effect, but you get the idea. This concept is why those two stereotypes exist.

To try to explain it another way, Se is the observation of true objective reality. Si is the impression and recreation of objective reality internalized. Similarly, Ne observes true objective external connections in reality while Ni is the subjective impression and recreation of objective external connections in reality internalized. Si and Ni are looking for significance of information (Subjective personal meaning). Se and Ne are looking at it neutrally. (Objective detached observation)

This is why Se and Ne users tend to be present minded and focused, as they primarily want to interact with the present, current, and real. For them to either reach backwards or forwards would require them to use their inferior Ni or Si respectively, because to focus on what is not current, and by extension, not real would require the person to internalize and rely on their impression of the past or future. This can be a challenge for them when a Se or Ne user’s internal impressions are hazy and weak due to instances when they do not prioritize recreating an accurate or detailed internal model of reality (which would require using the inferior function Ni or Si).

Now, this is not to say that Se and Ne doms can’t do it; they just don’t prioritize it. Thus, the impression they would use for projecting will be lacking in comparison to someone with the function higher, much like dominant Si and Ni users struggle with seeing objective reality for exactly what it is (IE: being able to stay present on it without going backwards or forwards and projecting).

Like anything else, function use is strengthened through use, practice, trial, and error, so you will see varying degrees of successful use scattered throughout all types.

Another random note is that Si is not nostalgic. Si is incapable of such things… Si is simply creating an idealized version of the past that then triggers the feeling function to feel nostalgic for it.

So, to sum this somewhat rambling mess up, Si is responsible for depicting one’s personalized impression of things. It will be the part of the user that offers up specialized insight about the world and will create the picture of how things are based on how things have impacted them. It provides the imagery for one’s internal world, whether that sticks closely to reality or veers into the fantastical. It will provide the extra context to normal everyday items and cause them to hold meaning for the Si user beyond their ordinary real ones. It bridges very slightly with memory as it informs how one will remember something, but not IF they will remember something.

Si is not memory storage. It is not the observation of objective reality. It is not directly the ability to remember tons of random information, though it may inform what one’s brain chooses to remember, depending on what left significant enough impressions on the individual.