This study attempted to provide some initial normative data to help professionals and researchers to distinguish between playful and stimulating suicidal fantasies as opposed to serious and compulsive thoughts and behaviours characterized by negative affects. It is argued that the former is a natural consequence of cognitive development, the entry into formal operational thought, which results in the extension from reality into the world of possibility which begins during the period of adolescense. However, when the precipitating mood and consequent affects become negatively coloured, perhaps in part, due to misunderstanding the "normalness" of such thoughts as well as the absence of feedback from significant others, then pathology is likely indicated. When we can make this distinction and monitor such shifts, that is, from spontaneous curiosity and excitement to obsessive thoughts and depression, we shall have taken a large step forward in predicting suicidal attempts and remediating them. (Author)