Jeremy, your unconscious mind is driven most by
By having your unconscious mind driven most by Curiosity, you probably have an inquisitive and forward-thinking nature. This trait can manifest by being full of thoughts about the future, or maybe you simply enjoy considering new ideas. Not one to be reined in by the humdrum realities of daily life, you appear to be able to look beyond those boundaries to imagine new vistas. People with a heightened drive for curiosity tend to be open-minded and non-judgmental. This can go hand in hand with their appreciation for seeking out new possibilities.
At times, having a seeking nature can make curiosity types highly intellectual, whether scientists, writers, or simply brainy daydreamers. "What if..." is likely a question never far from any of their minds. If this is true for you, then you may feel that new frontiers are where it's at. Following this inclination toward innovation can not only enrich your personal life, but also make you a valuable asset in business as well.
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Your responses to the inkblots reveal more than just what drives your unconscious mind. They also uncover some central details about your personality, perspective, and relationships with others. Your unconscious mind colors these characteristics but is different from them. Here's what your responses indicated:
Your concept of reality
Your concept of reality is a popular one and might be seen on the surface as being mainstream. When making first impressions, for the most part, you tend to see the world as others do. However, because you're a unique individual and have your own perspectives, it's likely that you also have a talent for devising your own novel viewpoints. This ability to see what others see but still have your own vision can be a great gift.
Because you're usually in agreement with the majority about the way things are, you're not likely to find yourself at odds because of your views. On the contrary, this common vision is likely one of the things that binds you to the people with whom you associate yourself. When a person's perspective is far different from the norm, they're much more likely to feel alienated and may have to work harder to get their points of view across. People like you have the opposite problem in that you may have a greater tendency to see what is obvious. Because you see what most people see, it can be a struggle to appreciate others' unusual perspectives or a lone opinion in the group. Be careful of getting too comfortable with your views, even if others share them. The obvious opinion isn't always the best one. Challenge yourself.
Take Action
In the past, it may have seemed to you that people with dissenting opinions were misguided or just plain wrong. Yet not all differing viewpoints lack merit. On the contrary, people with unusual perspectives can add breadth to a discussion or even present an entirely new lens through which to view a problem. Imagine the great inventors. Many of their boldest achievements must have sounded like crackpot schemes at first. However, their unique views eventually proved to be at the root of great scientific and technological advancements.
The best way to make sure that you're not writing off potentially valuable ideas from others is to pay special attention in situations where there is a dissenting opinion. While your initial reaction may be to squash an unexpected idea to move on to ones that you share, try instead to examine the contribution more closely. Ask yourself — or better yet, ask the idea's originator — what it is that guides their logic. Try to keep an open mind and really hear what the person saying, rather than trying to bend their views to match your own. If you can remain objective, you might find a fresh, new perspective or solution.
For example, imagine taking a friend along with you when buying a new cell phone. Your usual tendency might be to base your purchase solely on product features. After all, when buying electronic equipment, bells and whistles can be important. Picture that you've narrowed your selection down to two phones. Both are of quality, but one has a nicer keypad, cooler ring tones, and better number storage capabilities. Once you find out that there's only a $10 price difference between the two, your choice between them seems obvious.
But then your friend, shopping right along with you, asks the salesperson how many people have returned the phone you chose due to defects or other problems. The salesperson reluctantly tells you that the model you selected has a much higher number of problems than the other one you were considering. She also admits to you that if you drop the phone even one time, it will be destroyed.
After hearing this news you decide to put your usual criteria aside and select the phone with the better return record. If your friend hadn't been shopping with you, you would have made a different — probably worse — decision because the two of you went about shopping differently. By looking at things a new way, you can sometimes come to a different, more beneficial conclusion even in situations that appeared obvious.
Your mental flexibility
This section looks as the flexibility of your opinions, values, and perspective. To determine your result, Tickle's experts examined both the fluidity of your thinking and the rigidity of your opinions.
Based on your responses, you're reasonably flexible in your thinking and opinions. As a result, when dealing with most topics, you can easily consider other people's views. However, if a conversation centers on one of your core values, you're typically more reluctant to entertain other ways of thinking. This is true for most people. After all, it's good to have strong opinions on issues of importance. These views help create a foundation for what you believe in. Naturally, your ideas can change and develop over time. But particularly in your case, it's unlikely that they'll be radically different from day to day.
Occasionally your certainty can result in missed opportunities. If you're too sure of your values, you might forego the chance to observe a different way of being. You might also fail to imagine a way of life that might actually make you happier. If you find that you are excessively defensive on certain topics, it's likely because of one of the following reasons. Either the area is something you've had extensive experience with, and therefore have personal history to base your views on. Or, your defensiveness could be covering up a deep wound or insecurity that you're afraid will be exposed if you open yourself up to a new way of thinking.
Take Action
When you find yourself behaving defensively about one of your opinions, instead of escalating the situation or shutting down, take a moment to step back and examine your beliefs. Have you formed your opinion based on sound knowledge and experience, or is it merely convenient for you to think that way? At times, you might be surprised to find that fear or even simple laziness is at the root of some of your views. When trying to uncover what is really bothering you about having your viewpoint questioned, ask yourself: "What would be so bad if my opinion were wrong?" In finding out what you have to lose by changing your opinion you can come to some deep understanding about your true values and motivations.
Your Level of Fantasy
Some people fantasize nearly nonstop, others rarely do, and the majority of people fall somewhere in between. Imagination and the ability to create alternate realities are the two factors that determine whether or not a person is capable of having a highly colorful fantasy life. However, not everyone who can fantasize does. For example, if two strangers who were both capable of fantasizing were sitting next to one another on a bus, one might still spend the whole ride thinking about paying their bills and formulating their next to-do list, while the other could be envisioning taking a siesta on a tropical island. For Tickle's Inblot Test, having a high level of fantasy involves both having the mental tools necessary to fantasize and putting them to use.
Being prone to fantasy can be thought of as a spectacular gift. Fantasy can give one the ability to create a made-up world much more captivating and pleasurable than the usual day-to-day realities. This can be a wonderful asset as you go though life - a free form of entertainment that you can use any time.
Some people look at those who are fantasy prone in a derogatory way. They feel that the more realistically a person thinks, the saner they are. Indeed, most definitions of "abnormal" refer to what is "unusual" or "not frequent". Clinical experts sometimes look at fantasy as a means of trying to escape reality, rather that face what's there.
Regardless of how one feels about fantasy, its value is heavily dependent on how it's used. If you use fantasy to visualize improvements in your life without ignoring important realities, then fantasy can be a useful talent. It can help you maintain your optimism and even to devise novel solutions to your problems. However, if fantasy is something you retreat into as a way of denying reality, then you might want to reconsider your use of it.
Tickle's experts found that you are certainly capable of fantasizing and may even enjoy keeping yourself entertained that way. However, based on your responses, your first reaction to stress probably isn't to create an alternate universe or to imagine things differently than they actually are. In fact, you appear to have the nice balance of having the gift of fantasy at your disposal without having the tendency to overly rely on it. In other words, when it comes to fantasy, you typically use it, but don't abuse it.
Fantasy is a technique frequently employed by people living under harsh conditions in order to ease their stress. In this way, imagination can be a vital tool for prison inmates who live in depressing, restrictive conditions day in and day out. Using the power of fantasy can also be a profound relief for people living in poverty and in war zones. In fact, there are many people who live in adverse situations or deal with other painful circumstances that could benefit from occasional relief through fantasy.
Fantasy only becomes a problem when you ignore something you need to deal with because you have the ability to fantasize it away. For example, imagine you have a problem with an aunt of yours. Perhaps this aunt says something that upsets you almost every time you talk with her. As a result, after a while you stop listening to her in favor of pretending that you're someplace else entirely. The fantasy you create for yourself might be more exciting - and far less annoying, but it doesn't change this detrimental pattern between you and your aunt. A better response might be to put your fantasies aside for a while to address your aunt's poor communication style head-on.
At it's worst, fantasy can keep you from making important lifestyle choices. For instance, if you fantasize that you have boundless energy and are a wonderful athlete, and in the meantime sit on your couch eating potato chips and playing video games, there will eventually come a time where you won't be able to deny what is really happening to your body and you will have to tend to the reality of your deteriorating health. However, there's no reason that you have to let fantasy affect you in these negative ways. So long as you pay attention to the aspects of your life that need addressing, like your health or your career, you should be able to use fantasy and creative visualizations to bolster your happiness and success, not impede them.
How you relate to others
Your relationships are complex things. One important aspect affecting all of them is the role that you play when interacting with others. Do you typically take an active approach when dealing with the people around you, or do you tend to behave more passively? According to your test responses, you appear to have a balanced approach to interacting. You're not consistently the one who is active or passive. This mixed pattern indicates that, relative to other people, you try to either be sensitive to the needs of a particular situation or the people with whom you're dealing. By being able to adjust your approach depending on how the others are behaving, you can handle most situations with ease. Your friends may see you as a great listener or a savvy communicator because of your gift for reading people.
The overall effect of this balanced approach is that you have more options available to you when it comes to your communication style. The possible downside to this fact is that certain individuals with a balanced approach can get confused about which approach feels most natural to them — not just to the situation. While flexibility is a good thing, if you behave solely according to what's going on around you, it can wear on your sense of self.
Another difficulty you may find yourself running up against is that your balanced style may seem like inconsistency to other people. For example, if one day you take the lead in a group and the next day you choose to follow, this transition can be unsettling to those around you. Also when you're dealing with someone who is also balanced in their approach, your relationship can become an elaborate dance where each of you is trying to figure out who's taking charge. If you find yourself in a situation like this one, consider making your style more consistent — whether active or passive — in order to avoid potential confusion.
ps: i think this test somewhat sums up who i am hehehe. look out for the italicized sentences ...cool :p
Taken from http://www.tickle.com/
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