Dissociation: Amnesia

Five statements describe gaps in memory for one's own recent behavior: finding things among one's belongings that one does not remember acquiring, being told of things one did but cannot recall, finding writings or drawings one does not remember making, and being unable to remember important events in one's life. These experiences go beyond ordinary forgetfulness.

Dissociative amnesia was described in the clinical literature on dissociation, and Bernstein and Putnam (1986) included such experiences in the Dissociative Experiences Scale as a more unusual and clinically significant form than absorption. The statements here come from the public-domain International Personality Item Pool (IPIP).

The ratings are combined into a single score. Most people score low; higher scores describe more frequent gaps in memory for one's own actions. Such gaps can also arise from substance use, sleep problems or neurological conditions, so a high score warrants careful assessment and is not a diagnosis.

The scale is used in research on dissociation and memory. On this site, the Dissociation: Full Scale combines all three dissociation scales, the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES-II) is the standard clinical measure, and the Cognitive Failures scale describes ordinary everyday lapses.

Dissociative amnesia — gaps in autobiographical memory and memory for recent events — is a core component of the DES and predicts trauma-related clinical presentations.

“Found new things among my belongings that I didn't remember buying.”

Illustrative only. During administration items are presented one screen-set at a time; response-key direction is never shown to respondents.

Your report explains each of your scale scores in plain language.