An Australian artist who spent two weeks in a medically induced coma has described the vivid sinking-boat hallucinations he endured and the dramatic shift in outlook that followed.
Rob, who posts on YouTube as Rob-so-far-so-good, said that the experience stripped away his everyday anxieties and left him unafraid of death. Before hospitalization, he said, “the idea of the afterlife didn’t really cross my mind.”
The health crisis began when Rob was admitted for pancreatitis and deteriorated rapidly while under treatment. Medics asked permission to cut his t-shirt as they prepared to place him in the coma. They also asked whether to call his wife; in his delirious state, he refused because it was the middle of the night. They called her anyway, and she arrived to learn that doctors “didn’t think I was gonna make it through the night.”
What followed was not a dramatic near-death epiphany but a practical recalibration. In his video, he explained: “I almost died, and instead of having some deep and profound realization, I just stopped stressing about everything. Like bills? Who cares. Traffic? It’s easy, it’s okay, I can cope. People? Who cares what people think.”
During the coma itself, Rob experienced repeating visions of maritime disaster. He recalled: “I remember being in this boat, a large boat like a big ferry or something. The water kept rising. The boat was sinking and the water was rising. And I remember it coming up me and then it would recede.”
He later connected the imagery to his medical state, wondering whether the rising water signaled approaching death and its recession meant recovery. “You have no sense of reality,” he noted, “and you think this is your reality.”
The farewell with his wife carried an unsettling finality. He remembered telling her, “I love you” and “look after the kids.” She hugged and kissed him, responding, “I will” and “I’ll see you on the other side.” Rob found himself caught between the moment’s gravity and his own incapacity: “It’s weird to feel that you’re in that situation, you’re too sick to respond properly or even think about what you want to say.”
Afterward, he questioned whether that ordinary exchange would stand as his life’s end. “Was that it? Was that going to be the final moment of my life?” he asked. “You don’t say anything profound, you don’t say anything meaningful, I mean I loved her and my children, but you never think ‘is that going to be the end? Am I going to be swimming with the fishes?'”
The aftermath brought intensified relationships rather than grand philosophical declarations. Rob described himself as “more intense now” with his wife and said he no longer fears mortality. “Oddly, coming close to death can reduce the fear of it,” he observed. “You accept it, you accept that we’re all going to die.”
His appreciation has narrowed to specifics. “It’s not the big things,” he said. “It’s the little things, the smells and the way you see nature, the plants, and how much you appreciate growth and life and seasons.”
Rob characterized the phenomenon in broader terms as well. “People often describe it as a kind of reset, a wakeup call that jolts them into seeing what really matters, who really is important in their life,” he said. “The effect can be emotional, spiritual, or even psychological.”
The artist continues sharing his experiences through his YouTube channel, where his following has grown around videos documenting the lessons drawn from his health crisis and recovery.