Volitional experiences associated with breaching posthypnotic amnesia.

Highly responsive hypnotic subjects classified as having control over remembering (voluntaries) or not having control over remembering (involuntaries) during posthypnotic amnesia were compared during posthypnotic recall. Subjects rerated their voluntariness after the experiment. Two contextual conditions were employed (2 X 2 design): a lie detector condition meant to create pressure to breach amnesia and a relax control condition. In contrast to earlier findings, the recall data showed that both voluntary and involuntary subjects breached under the lie detector condition compared with their counterparts in the relax condition; however, the degree of breaching was not great in any condition. The results are discussed as they relate to studies attempting to breach posthypnotic amnesia and characteristics of the voluntary-involuntary dimension.