Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES)

The Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) is a short screening questionnaire for dissociation. It has 28 items, and you answer it about yourself.¹ You rate each experience as a percentage of the time, from 0 to 100.⁴

The DES is a screening tool, not a diagnosis. It settles nothing on its own. Screening means it can indicate that a closer look is worth having. A high score does not mean you have a dissociative disorder.

Only a qualified clinician can interpret a score, and they do so alongside your history, your circumstances, and whatever else the assessment turns up. The sections below cover what the scale asks, how scoring works, and what comes next.

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What Dissociation Actually Means

Dissociation describes a lack of the normal integration of thoughts, feelings, and memory.¹ Integration is the ordinary state in which those three work together as parts of one experience. When it is disrupted, part of your experience feels separate from the rest of you. Some degree of dissociation occurs in people with no diagnosis at all.¹

Everyday examples include daydreaming, or losing track of a familiar drive. Clinicians therefore describe dissociation as a continuum, with ordinary absorption and imaginative involvement at one end and dissociative disorders at the other.²

Dissociation is also part of how people respond to overwhelming stress or trauma.² It often begins as protection, not weakness.

Context matters too. In many cultures, meditative or spiritual practices intentionally induce similar states.³ Those intended experiences are not considered a disorder.³

What the DES Asks About

The 28 items ask mainly about amnesia, identity alteration, depersonalisation, derealisation, and absorption.⁴ The terms are technical. The experiences behind them are not.

Absorption means becoming so focused on one thing that you stop noticing what is around you. Depersonalisation means feeling detached from yourself, your body, or your actions. Derealisation means feeling that your surroundings are unreal, or oddly distant.

Amnesia items ask about gaps in memory for everyday events. Identity alteration means feeling or behaving like a different person at different times. On its own, none of these words describes a disorder.

The questionnaire items themselves are not reproduced here, for reasons of test security. The scale is meant to be given and interpreted by a professional. Recognising yourself in one description does not mean something is wrong.

How the DES Is Scored

Scoring is simple. Your DES score is the mean of all item scores.¹ It runs from 0 to 100.¹

A higher number means one thing only. You reported those experiences as happening more of the time. Cut-off numbers are quoted on some other websites. None are published here.

Interpretation thresholds belong to the assessing clinician, and to the research context they came from. A number read on its own, without that context, can mislead and frighten. That is the opposite of what a screening tool is for.

What a High Score Does and Does Not Mean

A high DES score is an indication, not a conclusion. It tells a clinician that dissociation deserves proper attention.

Dissociation is thought to be more prevalent in people living with major mental illness.¹ Dissociative symptoms also occur in other conditions, among them acute stress disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.⁵

Some medical conditions can directly cause dissociative symptoms.⁶ Certain substances can trigger depersonalisation or derealisation as well.³ Stress, sleep deprivation, and sensory overload can make symptoms more intense.³

That is why a score is read inside a full assessment, alongside your history, your physical health, and anything you are taking. A high score usually leads to a conversation about support. Help can follow from it.

How Trusted Is the DES

The DES was developed by Eve Bernstein Carlson and Frank Putnam in the mid-1980s.⁴ It has since been included in hundreds of studies.⁴ By 1996 it had already been used in over 100 studies on dissociation.⁷

The original study reported good test-retest reliability, split-half reliability, and internal consistency.¹ In plain terms, the same person tends to answer it much the same way on two occasions. The items agree with one another. The scale measures what it sets out to measure.

The scale has been translated into more than 40 languages.⁴ Studies across cultures show strong similarities for Western and non-Western samples.⁴ Gender, socioeconomic status and, within reason, IQ do not appear to distort scores.⁴

What the DES Cannot Tell You

The DES is a self-report measure. It depends on noticing, remembering, and honestly reporting your own experiences. It reflects how often something happens in general, not how you feel today.

A questionnaire cannot say what is causing the experiences. A thorough medical and neurological assessment is sometimes needed to evaluate these symptoms.⁸ Neurological means relating to the brain and nervous system.

Some people find the questions themselves unsettling. If that happens, tell the person who asked you to complete it. Your reaction is useful information, and it is fair to ask for support with it.

Versions and Related Measures

Several versions exist. They differ by age group and purpose.

• A-DES: a 30-item adolescent version of the DES, rated on a 0 to 10 scale.⁴
• Child Dissociative Checklist (CDC): a report completed by a caregiver and teacher, used to screen children aged 5 to 12.⁹
• DES taxon (DES-T): an 8-item subset of the DES linked to pathological dissociation, meaning dissociation at the disorder end of the continuum.⁹

Diagnosis itself needs more than a screen. For that, clinicians use structured interviews, described below. Which tools are used, and in what combination, is part of professional assessment.

What Happens After the DES

A DES result is normally discussed with the professional who gave it. They consider your history, your context, and any other assessment findings.

Where a dissociative disorder is a serious question, structured interviews come next. A structured interview follows a set list of questions, asked the same way each time. The SCID-D is widely seen as a reference standard for formal diagnosis.⁹ The DDIS is another diagnostic interview, also administered by a clinician.⁹

Our guide on how to find the right therapist sets out a practical way to begin. Dissociative experiences can be assessed, understood, and supported.

This article is for general information and is not a substitute for professional assessment or care. If this is affecting your life, consider reaching out to a qualified mental health professional.

References

1. [1] Bernstein, E. M., & Putnam, F. W. (1986). Development, reliability, and validity of a dissociation scale. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 174(12), 727-735.
2. [2] Kaplan & Sadock's Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, 10th ed (2017, vols 1+2), 20. Dissociative Disorders (pt 10).
3. [3] WHO - Clinical Descriptions and Diagnostic Requirements for ICD-11 (CDDR, 2024), 6B66 Depersonalization-derealization disorder.
4. [4] Kaplan & Sadock's Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, 10th ed (2017) - 17. Dissociative Disorders (DES: Bernstein Carlson & Putnam, 28 items, 0-100 method, DES taxon, A-DES, screening context).
5. [5] DSM-5 (APA 2013), Dissociative Disorders (pt 1).
6. [6] WHO - Clinical Descriptions and Diagnostic Requirements for ICD-11 (CDDR, 2024), 6E65 Secondary dissociative syndrome.
7. [7] Van IJzendoorn, M. H., & Schuengel, C. (1996). The measurement of dissociation in normal and clinical populations: Meta-analytic validation of the Dissociative Experiences Scale. Clinical Psychology Review, 16(5), 365-382.
8. [8] Kaplan & Sadock's Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, 10th ed (2017, vols 1+2), 20. Dissociative Disorders (pt 25).
9. [9] Kaplan & Sadock's Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, 10th ed (2017, vols 1+2), 20. Dissociative Disorders (pt 4).