Internal stresses are developed during deformation and have an important role in determining the mechanical properties and, in particular, the creep properties of crystalline materials. The strain transient dip test is the generally accepted method for the determination of internal stresses developed during creep. The strain transient dip test has been analysed using a number of very general creep models and it is concluded that, for glide-controlled creep, the dip test can only be interpreted if the relation between dislocation velocity and the force on the dislocation is linear. When this is the case it measures not an average internal stress but an average back stress for all the dislocations, mobile and immobile, where the back stress is the resolved component of the internal stress plus the glide component of the line tension force divided by the Burgers vector. The dip test does not allow separation of the back stress into internal stress and line tension components. For recovery models the results of the dip test cannot be simply interpreted because expressions for the creep rate do not define a unique average internal stress or back stress. However, for the recovery model in which strain occurs by athermal or jerky glide there will be a reverse yield stress, i.e. there will be a stress reduction below which there will be ''instantaneous'' reverse strain followed by reverse creep. By averaging the instability condition for all the dislocations participating in jerky glide it is shown subject to assumptions, that the sum of the average internal stress experienced by dislocations involved in both forward and reverse creep can be obtained from the reverse yield stress. Separate values for these internal stresses cannot be obtained, however. Determination of the reverse yield stress for recovery creep is the experiment equivalent to the strain transient dip test for glide-controlled creep.
