Fantasy vs. Reality

There is a key difference between people which the major personality theories neglect to include in their list of traits. That is, a person’s interest in and love of Fantasy or Science-Fiction. Or to put it in perhaps better terms, a person’s longing for and identification with immaginary Other-worlds or perhaps legendary Other-times. The common mistake is to consider this preference to belong to the realm of tastes and interests, which is a different level of personality which seems to be not so deep, nor so basic, because specific interests are defined to a great extent by what is available in any given culture for one to be interested in. For example, in a culture which has only experienced one kind of music, musical tastes cannot provide a great deal of insight into what a person is like or whether or not he will get along with someone else, at least not to the extent that they do in our society where the genres of music to choose from seem veritably endless. I do believe that tastes are affected by the deeper personality traits, which will predispose people to like or dislike various kinds of things, or various aspects of different things. Concerning my theory on the interest in Fantasy, I must admit that I am going wholly on my own reasonings and observations within the culture familiar to me and realise that Fantasy as I know it is not available to people of all cultures. However, I venture to guess that the heart of the love of Fantasy, or indeed Fantasy in some form or other, can be found in any culture. At the core, I think this proposed new aspect of personality is a longing for and fascination with something Other, something that is Not Reality.

People seem to be drawn to two different types of stories.

Some people are totally captivated by true-life, or realistic stories which could have actually happened. They seem particularly pleased when they learn that something they have watched or read is something that actually did happen, or which was based on real events, and will often enthusiastically mention this to others as a kind of reccommendation. They are fascinated by the real world that is around them. Whether it be nature or society which they enjoy most, they like to know how things really are and find great satisfaction in being ‘up on’ real life people, places, events, and issues. These are the people who hate to miss the news, who pour time into research, who know what’s in fashion, who keep tabs on celebrities, who read biographies and nature guides and history books, who are, in a word, Savvy when it comes to the real world and dealing with life in it. They are excited by all there is to know and experience in the real world, and they feel good about themselves because of their understanding of real life and competance in it. They have a sense of being part of the world, know that they live in it, and have a kind of duty or commitment to it. They care about what’s going on around them and feel that others ought to be aware of the world and care about it as well. They have little patience for people who waste their time on things that don’t exist and couldn’t exist, seeing their indiference to the real world as ireesponcible, and even in a way taking it as a personal affront. The world matters, and they can’t understand people who waste the life they actually have on silly fantasies that will never be real. The very strong Reality lovers may not even understand reading realistic fiction because it too is not actual, but most Reality lovers do enjoy entertainment which takes place in realistic, familiar, or believable settings. The more unfamiliar the territory or unbelievable the events the less comfortable they become with it. Among these Reality lovers there seem to be all types of personalities; those who like to observe the world, and those who like to organize and schedual it, those who like hand’s on interaction, and those who like to contemplate and reflect on it, those who approach it objectively, and those who approach it subjectively, those who focus on people and those who prefer solitude.

Then there are the people who are drawn to stories of other places and other times. They are attracted by, and long for things that are Different from the way things actually are. They don’t have a great deal of interest in the actual world around them, and frequently find it boring in comparison to places that they or others have immagined. They find themselves irresistably drawn to immaginary worlds and immerse themselves in Fantasy or Science-fiction books, movies, and games, frequently ignoring ‘real life’ as much as they possibly can. It is in these other worlds that they feel most alive, and they often feel like zombies going through the motions when dealing with ‘Real-life’ situations, such as school or work. Their immaginations are usually very active, and long past child-hood they may secretly enjoy pretending they are in a diferent setting in order to make ordinary tasks more interesting (A trip to the grocery store is much more exciting when turned into a quest for magical ingredients). They often care very little about popular culture or current events, and maintain a more periferal awareness of real-life issues and necessities. In their intense persuit of the Immaginary, they often do whatever they can to make real life more like the Other-worlds of which they are so fond. Many of them learn outdated crafts, or the use of old-time weaponry, play Role Playing Games, dress in costumes, decorate their homes oddly, and learn endless facts about entirely Fictional worlds. They spend much of their free time in the creation or development of Immaginary places and stories, often through drawing and art, or through writing and RPGs. They are totally captivated by alternative realities and fascinated by unfamiliar, unreal, unbelievable things. They enjoy the sense of mystery about things that could exist but haven’t been confirmed or discovered yet. They love legends, myths, and speculations about the future. Unlike the Realists who have trouble connecting with the improbable, they are quite comfortable ‘suspending disbeliefe’ in order to enjoy a book or movie that takes place in an unrealistic setting. They like to picture all the options of how things could be, freely re-mixing familiar things to create something new. They revel in the creation of diferent species, different landscapes, different natural laws, different societies, different fashion, different life-styles. They love exploring the possibilities of how things could have been and feel no particular commitment to how things are. In fact, they usually have a deep yearning for a different life than their own, and feel as though they don’t actually belong here. They often have a sense of being from a different time and different place, aliens and misfits among, what they see as, all these mundane humans. They often scorn being content with life as it is, and pity those who don’t appreciate looking past reality into other possibilities. Although they know that much of what they love so dearly does not exist here and now, many of them maintain a secret beliefe that anything is possible and often hope against hope that some shred of the immaginary worlds, in which they feel so at home, may turn out to be true after all.

The importance of Fantasy or Reailty is a topic which I think evokes some pretty dramatic responces from people, and which frequently drives a wedge between them. Although Fantasy and Science-Fiction films and books have gained some popularity and general acceptance in more recent years, particularly with the long running Star Trek TV series, movies like Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings, and book series like Harry Potter. Yet in spite of the large fan communities such things have generated, there is still a sense that those who truely love Fantasy are in the minority. Most Fantasy lovers will agree that they have felt at some point in their life, if not for most of it, totally surrounded by people who have little interest or respect for Fantasy. While plenty of people may mildly enjoy a Fantasy film now and then, many of them feel no particular attraction toward Fantasy and Sci-fi over any other modern-day or historical fictional story. When it comes down to it people who are most interested in Reality tend to be very criticle of the Fantasy lovers, who they see as being irresponcible, impractical, and incomprehensible. When it comes to interacting with real life situations they often feel very strongly that Fantasy lovers’ focus on the unreal is simply not right or acceptible. Fantasy and Sci-fi enthusiasts can be quite criticle in their turn toward the Reality devotees, considering them boring, mundane, and unable to think outside the box, and they may see themselves as a kind of higher being than those ‘pitiful mortals’. I don’t believe it is a simple matter of differing tastes which causes people to feel such a sense of alienation from eachother. Instead, I propose that it is in fact a fundemental difference in personality, a disposition either toward Reality or toward the Not-Real (which for the sake of an easy term I have called Fantasy).


---- A Look at Kiersey’s Sensing and INtuition ----
When first reading Please Understand Me, Kiersey’s description of the Sensing/Intuitive traits sounded very much to me as though they were the key to whether one likes Fantasy or not. The description of the Sensing person says: “He might be described as earth-bound, as grounded firmly in reality, anchored to earth -- a terrestrial.” It goes on to say they are much more concerned with what actually is than with possibilities and that they “tollerate no nonsense” in regards to getting things done. Another key line in the description says the Sensing person “wants facts, trusts facts, and remembers facts.” This sounds very much like the kind of person who cannot understand people’s interest in Fantasy, the sort who feel that immaginary worlds are a waste of time, the sort who like to be aware of what’s going on in the “Real World” whether it be popular culture, business, or politics.

In contrast that book described the intuitive person as one who daydreams and reads fantasy or fiction. It claims “The intuitive acts as though he is an extra-terrestrial, a space traveler engaged in explorations beyond the realities of the present and the past. The possible is always in front of him, pulling on his immagination like a magnet.” It also describes the intuitive as having his head often in the clouds, focusing on immagination, and as not being interested in reality: “They seem somewhat bothered by reality, constantly looking toward possibilities of changing or improving the actual.” It mentions they are quick to see how things could be different than they are. This all points to the person who loves Fantasy and yearns for the places that one can only immagine.

Three of the questions pertaining to these two traits also strongly suggest that Sensing people would not like Fantasy and that Intuitive people would.

children often:
a) do not make themselves usefull enough
b) daydream enough

you prize most in yourself
a) a good sense of reality
b) a good immagination

you have more fun with
a) hands-on experience
b) blue-sky fantasy

There are, however, other aspects to both of these traits which do not necessarily imply a preference for Fantasy or Reality, and which I believe are the true core of the S/N personality difference. Kiersey describes the differences between INtuitive and Sensing people as mostly having to do with prefering abstract thought or ‘concrete’ experiences, forming concepts or making acurate observations. The INtuitive person likes to analyse, while the Sensing person likes to act. As the names suggest, the basic difference in question with these two traits is whether one is tuned in more to one’s physical senses or to one’s intuition. Intuition is defined as knowing or understanding something without the need of conscious reasoning. Kiersey describes this phenomenon as ideas coming to someone as a whole, rather than step by step, and suggests that Intuitives are able to grasp ‘the big picture’ easily without paying attention to the details of individual cases - their minds quickly make connections and work out logical results without thinking about the data involved. In contrast he describes Sensing people as having sharp senses, picking up on details in their surroundings and coming to conclusions through experience or experimentation, prefering hands-on action to theorizing and philosophizing.

It is my belief that the Jung/Myers-briggs/Kiersey theory has taken the basic traits of S and N a little too far in concluding that people who like experience and are tuned into their senses do not have an interest in Fantasy (on the grounds that it is not real and therefore not readily experiencable) and that people who prefer contemplation and abstract thought do like Fantasy (because they like unseen possibilities). While it may appear to be a fairly logical conclusion, my experience tells me otherwise. I believe these two traits can predict how a person who likes Fantasy will persue that interest, but not whether he will have that interest or not. It is possible, that what makes a difference here is how strongly one prefers Sensing or Intuition, or how well one has developed his weaker trait. I am not entirely convinced by this theory, feeling as though I have observed people with strong and weak preferences for either trait who still do or do not like Fantasy. While I don’t have conclusive case studies, and admit this is worth further consideration, my experience does not seem to back up the strength theory.

What first brought the Sensing = No Fantasy assumption into question for me was the description later on in the book Please Understand Me of the SP (Sensing Perceiving) person as being the Artisan. Now, the word Artisan in that book is used to mean more than the traditional artist, it is meant to encompas most physical activities in which the doer is constantly refining his skill - it refers to Craftsmen, Musicians, Athletes, and Entertainers as well as Artists. Yet in Entertainment, Art and Craftwork there are definately examples of Artisans devoted to Fantasy, Immagination, and the Unreal Possibilities, those who show us visions of Variations on Reality. Futhermore, the typical picture of the Artist is of someone who is not very ‘grounded in reality,’ nor very ‘practical,’ but rather, someone who tends to live eccentrically, as if insisting upon creating his own reality rather than submitting to live “inside the box.” An artist can surely experience and appreciate intensely his sensations, being greatly moved by color or shape, texture or flavor, while at the same time prefering an immaginative, rather than “factual,” approach to life.

Furthermore the description of the NT (Intuitive Thinking) as the Rational or the Scientist doesn’t imply a fascination with Fantasy. Kiersey explains them as desiring “To be able to understand, control, predict, and explain realities.” The emphasis of this temperament is aquiring knowledge, and being competant. This desire for knowlege and understanding, this obsession with having all his facts right and all his logic flawless certainly brings to mind the Scholar and in particular the Scientist, two roles which do not have much of a connection with Fantasy or an obsession with worlds that do not actually exist (and therefore cannot be tested and experimented with, nor studied to a great degree - I should think one would be hard-pressed to find any Proffessors of Narnian History nor any Scientific Periodicals on the biochemistry of Vulcans.) While I do personally know a number of NTs who are fans of Fantasy and Science-Fiction, I feel it is very safe to assume that there are also many who have little interest in such things. As a further note, I would like to point out that abstract thinking encompasses a great deal more than immagining Fantasy, and is necessary in many fields seeking to understand reality. The intangible is not synonimous with the unreal, therefore it can hardly be assumed that one who enjoys intangible thought must enjoy things which do not actually exist. An N’s oppenness to seeing possibilities may yet easily be kept within the realm of actual possibilities, rather than necessarily extending beyond to the physically impossible.

After having noticed these discrepancies in trait and temperament decriptions in the book, this idea that a love of Fantasy cannot be tied to Intuition has brooded in the back of my mind for many years. During this time, I feel that my observations of people have confirmed my suspicion that creativity in the form of Fantasy is not only the N’s realm. I am uncertain whether there are certain personality types who almost uniformly embrace or disdain Fantasy, but my inclination is to say that all the 16 personality types may be found amongst both the Fantasy and the Reality camps. As my own interest is planted very firmly on the side of Fantsy, I find myself aquainted mainly with a social group which shares this interest, yet I feel that amongst the various people I have encountered in places such as the Star Wars Club at school there has been a good mixture of personality types who deomonstrate their love of Fantasy in unique ways.

It has been my involvement on deviantART, an online art community, which I think finally provoked me to seriously question, once again, the apparent theory in the Kiersey books that Sensing is related to Reality loveing people and Intuition is related to Fantasy lovers. While browsing and searching on the deviantART site, I have found a great deal of excellent art and craftwork which is centered around the concept of Fantasy or Scienc-Fiction. There are many tallented artists who paint picture after picture of immaginary landscapes and fantastical creatures, not merely illustrating some other N’s ideas, but soley of their own creation. While some of them are also writers and contemplaters, many of them do not evidence N-like tendancies, and show marked ability in the hands-on realm, which at least I as an N do not feel capable of achieving. There are many tallented craftsmen who turn out elaborate clothing, armor, jewelry, wands, swords, books, figurines etc. all with a Fantasy or Sci-fi theme. These are clearly great artisans who are also obsessed with Fantasy, and who turn their acute senses, ability to work with physical tools and media, and their love of experience toward making the Immaginary come to life; exploring, visualizing, and enjoying the Not-Reality in their own hands-on style. While they will never be able to sprout wings and fly in this life, they still create wings for themselves in whatever their preferred medium may be. The Intuitive’s preference for thinking and immagination (in-mind creativity), for writing and analysing does not seem to explain the profuse Fantasy-based physical creations I see and experience on deviantART or in the overall Fantasy/Sci-fi community. The number of booths at Renaissance Faires or other Conventions, and websites offering things like finely crafted lightsabers and magic wands, cloaks and wings, I think is ample evidence of the complimentary coupling of a love for Fantasy and an orientation towards the tangible. While the Intuitive who loves Fantasy will be good at seeing the possibilities of other worlds in his mind, I believe the Sensing person who loves Fantasy will be good at crafting such other-worldly possibilites so that they can be more vividly experienced than just in the mind.

In my own experience of drawing or sewing I find that the action and the immagination are one. I do not so much immagine an idea completely and then make it after a dutifull drone-like fashion. The vision happens and shifts in the doing itself. The concept of a fairy becomes as it is drawn. The doing is not separate from the immagining, even though the strong N who is not often caught up in action may feel inclined to believe that. The question to me, seems to be whether someone prefers mostly to immagine abstractly through words and mental immages, or to immagine concretely through crafting and action.

Further proof of this idea comes from taking note of the differences and similarities between myself and my husband Mark. We both have a love of fantasy, and are not content with or committed to the world As It Is. We like to come up with new and different ideas and visions of how things could be. However, we tend to approach our passion for fantastical immaginings in quite different ways. Mark demonstrates very SP-like tendancies. He persues new experiences and loves to keep himself busy with activities (without the stimulation of something to be working on he falls asleep easily). He loves tools and is very good at making use of them. He prefers to listen to books on tape while working on projects with his hands, rather than just sitting and reading. He is concerned with how things function and is good at figuring out how to make things work. In spite of all this S-ness, he does not think that Fantasy is a waste of time or see it as impractical. He loves to make unusual clothing for himself which is unlike anything seen on the streets. He draws designs of other-wordly clothes, makes leather hats that look like they came out of a fantasy film, and makes elaborate maps of entiely made up lands. He enjoys watching Fantasy and Science-fiction movies, and prefers imagining such settings to keeping up on Real World places and events. He envisions a future that is more in line with life in a Fantasy setting than life as we know it here and now. He plots how to dig a Hobbit Hole and researches the construction of tree-house dwellings. He’s always busy finding a way to bring his ideas and visions into existance. In contrast to Mark’s hands-on approach to creating fantasy, being an NF, I tend to mostly enjoy Fantsy by immagining scenes and stories in my head, and in writing them down and describing them, or in reading about them in books. I do enjoy making clothes and things which create a more Fantasy styled atmosphere for myself, but the primary field for my immagination as well as my non-fantasy related interests, is thought. In true N style I love to contemplate, reflect, discuss, theorize, analyse, and philosophize more often than I like to get my hands on things (other than my keyboard). While Mark prefers a day in which he made something, I prefer a day in which I thought and wrote about something. Yet I do not experience in him the “down-to-earth, no-nonsense” type of person who prefers Reality to Possibility and has no time for Fantasy, as the orriginal descripion of the S would imply should accompany his focus on tangible experience. He strikes me very much as an S in his approach to life, yet is definately a Fantasy/Sci-fi enthusiast.


---- Considering J and P ----
At one time I thought that perhaps the enjoyment of Fantasy might be linked to the P trait in opposition to the J trait, though I don’t think it is a very good correlation. My theory was that J people tend to be more work and duty oriented, predisposing them to disaprove of things which seem too flighty and time wasting - under which unreal Fantasy would fall. However, I believe this theory made sense to me only because my experience of people with strong J leanings happened to be comprised of people who were also not interested in Fantasy. I don’t think that prefering structure and closure nesessarily results in disliking Fantasy, though I am not certain of any specific examples for or against this among people I know.

---- What about T and F? ----
An F person might be inclined to think that someone who values logic so much wouldn’t relish all the illogic found in Fantasy stories filled with magic, nor with Sci-fi stories wich are often a bit fuzzy when it comes to actual scientific explainations of all the amazing technology portrayed in them. Yet, I know from first-hand experience that there are numerous NTs in the Fantasy/Sci-fi community, so that possibility is definately ruled out. I might venture a guess, however, that Ts might possibly be more inclined toward Science-Fiction while Fs might possibly be more inclined toward Fantasy. I have no proof of this, merely an intuitive ‘feeling’ and vague memories of experiencing more Sci-fi books with particularly T-like characters and a more detached narrative voice, while it feels like more attention is payed to feelings in many of the Fantasy books I’ve read.

I think there is no need to bring Introversion and Extraversion into question on this because it seems quite obvious that there are both Es and Is who prefer Fantasy or Reality.


---- Final Thoughts ----
In my personal face to face experience it seems I have encountered a majority of Is Ns and Ps in the Fantasy/Sci-fi community, but I don’t feel I can truely link any one of these traits to being the cause of loving Fantasy, and would guess that this majority is partly due to simply gravitating toward people like myself. I do not think that the love of Fantasy even comes down to a particular combination of the traits S/N T/F and J/P because it seems as though I can easily picture a person of any of the combinations who doesn’t have an interest in Fantasy. I have no proof that this is so, of course, but that is what it feels like.

Even if there is some correlation between certain traits and a predisposition to likeing Fantasy or Reality, I still feel that this is a separate fundamental difference in personality which, although it may be affected by other traits, is not explained entirely by any of them. It is my oppinion that the S and N descriptions should not include the connotations of being interested in Reality and Fantasy respecitvely, but that personality typing would benefit greatly by adding another set of traits to the list of basic preferences which would adress the orientation toward the Real World or Immagined Worlds as separate from a preference for concrete or abstract experience. I’m not sure what letters could best be used to represent these preferences. While R would work fine for the Reality focused people, F has already been taken by Feeling, and therefore it would seem a different word is needed to stand for the Fantasy focused people. Immaginary doesn’t work because of course I has already been taken twice. I suppose that in the pecident of INtuition M might be adopted, but that has too close an association with the word Magic and would perhaps be misconstrued. After the same pattern, we could use A instead of F, but I will grant that Fantasy may also seem too disctinct a word to encompass Science-Fiction which I mean for it to also cover. Thus for now, I will leave you with the question of what word might suite the opposite of Reality best.