Or your death, as this is a question that all people with terminal illness confront.

Hope is delusional when you reach the point where hope is doing your life more harm than it can good.

I don’t know. There are some things so important to your heart that if you gave up all hope, you might as well lay down and die.
But I wouldn’t call that delusional, unless you were certain that it WAS going to happen, even though it is obvious to others that it won’t, and you started building your life around it happening when it’s not gonna.

I think it is the matter of possibility vs. probability and being discriminating and non-delusional enough to know the difference. Sure, anything is possible but is it probable?
It is possible that your abusive partner may change but it is not probable.
It is possible you might win the lottery but it is not probable.

It is possible you might be cured from your rare form of brain cancer but it is not probable.
I’m too much of a realist and not prone to fantastical fantasies. I pretty much always look for the probability in any situation not the possibility. haha

I guess when you keep thinking your loved one will beat this terminal illness,and you’re at their funeral.

To me, hope is just attachment. I’m not an expert on practicing non-attachment, but I have reached a point where I can see that hope for something in particular can be traded in for a greater contentment in watching things flow in and out of one’s life. I’ve also experienced “the universe” bringing good experiences to my doorstep as the result of having a quiet mind. What need then is there for hope? Everything is already taken care of, and so long as I’m “centered” good things will come and go. If a thing I might have once hoped for doesn’t come, it’s not a problem, because “as is” I already have everything and everything else will come when it is needed.

Hope is always a delusion. Some are good ones that we can tell ourselves to make our selves feel better, like ‘I hope they die a horrible painful death’.... and then I feel better,... but chances are, that won’t happen. Goals are less delusional. Those are things we can actually work towards. I’d never actively seek to have someone die a horrible painful death. That is an illusion. What I can do have a goal to get a different job so I don’t have to work with that person anymore.

Hope is slightly delusional. We hope to never get sick, we hope someone who has no feeling for us will change, we hope to be rich, to live a long and happy life. Hope is more of a kin of faith.

Only most of the time hope can come with some things that make it more possible than faith.
We have faith in all of man kind. Odds really not in your favor. You have no control over all of mankind.

We have hope that we will live a long life. (Possible if you have good genetics and take care of your health and have no accident)

So to answer your question, hope becomes delusional when you have to wish on a star in hopes that it will come true.

Most people know when all hope is lost, because hope is usually based on some reality and there will always be that point when you realize (unless you are nuts or obsessed ) you are either wasting your time or you may actually have a shot.

Personally, I always felt he was obsessed and would never see reality.

When facts become overwhelming.

When praying and reading the bible don’t cure your illness, while at the same time avoiding going to a doctor.

When praying and reading the bible don’t bring your cheating husband back, instead of visiting a divorce lawyer.

When praying and reading the bible doesn’t get your underage daughter to keep her legs closed long enough to keep her from getting pregnant, rather than discussing birth control options with her before she gets pregnant, rather than after.

^^All of these things happened to my cousin, and she still asks us to pray for her on Facebook : (

Not all hope is delusion, though you must have some realistic basis for your hope. Hope can provide the drive to set goals and work towards them, even if those goals might be difficult or unlikely. Without hope, you might not even bother to try.

Hope for things that turn out to be impossible becomes delusion if kept up too long. Sometimes friends, family or a counselor help you see when it’s time to give up on something and move on.

My view is purely utilitarian. All my life as an organizer I’ve had to wrestle with positive versus negative thinking, as each has its benefits. In the end, I did research which confirmed my suspicion that each has its role and function.

Negative thinking is used for dealing with specific and immediate problems. It tends to focus attention over the short term. The weakness of negative thinking is two-fold. First, it is extremely toxic to the body; the risk-factor of early death associated with negative thinking is something like five times that of smoking, largely as a result of the effects on the body of chronic stress reaction. Second, it keeps attention focused entirely on what’s happening in front of you, preventing any kind of long-term planning.

Positive thinking is used for seeing the big picture, planning strategically, and avoiding pitfalls which may require negative thinking to escape. The weakness of positive thinking is where I actually address your question. Repeated psych studies have shown that people who are depressed are markedly better at solving problems involving judgement, such as estimating whether a given shape will fit a given hole. Non-depressed people err constantly on the side of optimism. This supports the hypothesis of depressive realism which holds that the function of depression is to provide an individual with the most accurate possible information for dealing with a serious existential problem which might be otherwise insoluble.

The utilitarian view, then, is that hope becomes delusional when it stops working. When the long view stops being able to avoid pitfalls, then switching to negative thinking is necessary.

I agree that not all hope is delusional. Often things turn out like I hope they will. Some times they don’t. But it wasn’t delusional to hope that they would (as long as it was actually feasible, and not a fantasy.)