This initial study of reunion fantasies with a loved one was made with hospital patients. Some were psychologically ill and some physically ill. The hypotheses are: disappointed or depressed people turn to dead objects by way of a suicide fantasy or act; others, unable to tolerate intense ambivalent relationships, turn to suicide as an escape. Dying people with organic disease reinvest their feelings in dead loved ones. Relatively healthy people, under the stress of surgery, may have fairly accessible reunion fantasies.