I doubt anybody can do it instantaneously but I am positive you can poison yourself with negativity over a long period of time and expedite your own death.

Not sure but, my wife's sister-in-law's husband's father who was around 80 and in good health, one evening told the family that he did not want supper. Got into pajamas and said 'It's time for the big sleep" He was dead by 10 p.m. Just like that. did he will it? don't know but he knew something was going on.

No. The automatic nervous system that maintains vital functions is not under conscious direction. Obviously, conscious decisions can have an indirect effect - such as drinking a poison - and if you're dying anyway, mental states can influence the speed of the process.

I'll tell you a story. My dad was diagnosed with a massive brain tumor. This was in the very early 80's before imagining technology was widely available. He underwent exploratory surgery and was in the ICU for about a week. His tumor was deemed inoperable. When he was released from ICU and I went with my mother to visit him, he got out of bed and was pacing around asking us if we brought his clothes because he wanted to leave. He was adamant. We tried to calm him down and explained to him that he just got out of ICU and wasn't ready to come home yet. We stayed a while until he was relaxed and in bed. When we arrived home late that night, the phone rang and it was the hospital calling. He had passed. He died of a massive heart attack. The thing is I know, I know he wanted to leave and I think that with just the stress of having to be there and what he was going though, I believe, yes he wanted out and he left.

Queequeg did it in Moby Dick.

I think it's more complicated than that. No I don't believe a person can just think "I am dead" and just die. However the mind is still a pretty complicated and somewhat mysterious thing, even to doctors. They are making leaps and bounds but still find it difficult to know just how it works on a whole. I think if you have the genetic make up or some sort of damage already that an aneurysm could possibly burst from straining but otherwise, not really.

I do know the state of mind can magnify health issues if and when the person focuses on the concern the issues are getting worse. I have watched this very thing happen and end in death through the slow shut down of various organs that really didn't seem to have reason to shut down. I think it has to do with the state of mind working over hormonal releases that might rise to toxic levels.

I know that keeping focused on things that make us happy, not just alleviate pains but honest enjoyment and happiness, constructive things, has helped in improving health. This also goes back to more positive and uplifting hormones being released and keeping that from happening, providing there isn't a terminal condition that is strong enough to overcome such a thing.

If you lose the will or a reason to live I think you will shut down especially if you are old & your time is done.

At best you'd fall asleep. We are built to survive. It's part of evolution.
The exception is people close to death, hanging on. I believe they could use their will to let go at a time they choose.

The was once a species that had the ability to die instantly just by thinking about it. Please tell me you get it.

Probably not. Such genetics would have Darwined you right from the get-go.

Let's get the correct ends of this issue defined. With straining, it's more likely you're going to get hemorrhoids than your brain is going to explode.

I'd like to believe that we have some capacity for innate wisdom about when it's time to die, but there is almost no evidence that such a thing exists. I don't trust narratives alone, either. Do you want to risk enduring a lot of needless agony in the faith that this capacity to die easily when it's the right time will be there when you need it? I don't.

My personal opinion is that a person should be able to choose the time, place, and means by which to end their lives, and it is not something that has to be hidden from those we have a connection with.

The knowledge of how to end your life without failure or complication is out there, and it's not rocket science. Frontline ran a segment titled "Final Exit" some years ago, and all the basic information is there. That has to be around somewhere. The Hemlock Society is probably still around, and they provide information and possibly assistance in states where that is not prosecuted.

I just lost a friend to diabetes and a heart condition. I'm not saying he willed himself dead, but sure as shit he didn't will himself to live either.

Not right away I think.

But many people kill themselves slowly, purposefully or apathetically.

My brother did that via alcohol!

I do believe so yes. I don't think a healthy person would be able to, but there is a very strong Mind Body Connection.

This is were a gun is a reliable shortcut. That is how Mean guns are, you do not have to think about it much. And you post this in Health and Happiness?

Of course they can, LOL!

I read that a certain percentage of people who died of snake bites were bitten by nonvenomous snakes, or snakes that didn't release poison when they struck.

People lost in the mountains have been found "frozen to death" in the open when the temperature never got below 60 degrees.

Certain tribes of Native American Indians still choose their day of death when they reach 120 year old, have a ritual party, say good-bye, lie down and die, while still healthy. This used to be the norm in China as well.

I've read that most deaths are voluntary, but others don't notice it. Someone will lose a spouse and they'll suddenly die of a minor disease. My parents died within months of each other.

Sheldon Cooper tried on Leonard and failed miserably....I mean, his eyes almost out of his sockets tells me he really really put his powerful PhD brain into the task but to no avail.....so, there you go, you're welcome

I deal with the thought of not waking up most of the time. although when I do wake up I go through a bout of depression and think, fuck I just don't have it in me to go on any more. Then I'll take my meds,and then I'll Pick up my Spanish guitar and play some music. That will most of the time will get me out of the funk I'm feeling. Playing music is like therapy to me.But no, I don't think one can will themselves to die. I've thought about it more times than I can remember, and it's never worked. On a better note though, when I do get past the depression part, I am very much happy to be alive. It's usually the music part that gets me going. When I play something, or an idea comes to mind, I'll record it. and when I do that I get the sense of maybe I'm not as defective as Imight think.

If it is possible, I have failed at that too. I have willed myself to simply die countless times. Laid there, just wanting to not wake up, and openly wept when I opened my eyes the next morning. I wish it was as easy as simply deciding to turn off the system.

I have personally witnessed two people will themselves to death; one of them being my father. I am convinced it can be done, but it's not like the movie "Scanners" where your head explodes. When you are at the end of the options you feel you have available and you have no hope for recovery, yes you can will yourself to death. In both cases it wasn't about extreme focus, but just completely giving up.

If it were possible, I think I would be dead right now.

No

I don't think it's possible to think yourself to death.

You've seen that documentary called "Men who stare at goats" haven't you?