Too much water is deadly?

I really need to ask this question because no one has been able to answer it definitively for me.

- Birjees Hussain

I've asked friends, googled the question and asked countless pharmacies and each person I ask gives me a different answer. I'm talking about water and how much we are supposed to drink in a day. Some pharmacists told me two litres a day and another 8 cups, which is apparently 1.5 litres a day.

I was always told to believe that one should only drink water if one feels thirsty or when one's throat feels dry. But which one is it?

I ask because there was an article in a newspaper that said that drinking too much water is deadly. It didn't say, could be deadly or might be deadly or may be deadly, it specifically said 'is deadly'. The article was about a man who was in hospital for a prostate issue and the medical staff told him to drink as much water as possible. They told him to drink 8 glasses every hour of following their instructions. Clearly the staff made a huge mistake telling the patient to drink 8 glasses an hour. The cells in his body, including his brain, swelled up and burst. Sort of like water poisoning.