[dllthomas]

Of course.

Would you be less likely to interpret it as such if the speaker had omitted "literally"?

I would say that the sentence is an example of hyperbole. "I am so figuratively dead right now it's as if I am literally dead." The meaning of literally, there, remains intact.

In the same way, when someone complains that you left them waiting for "days" we don't say "sometimes days means ten minutes" but that sometimes people exaggerate.