traukanshaku said:
I can't be the only one who's ever thought of this. Your thoughts, fellow Escapists?
I think that the reason why it "explains so much", because you're applying the ultimate joker. Everything can be explained by simply declaring that every possibility exists and can be connected at will. It's basically a tautology: "this and that happens, because it exists somewhere" - all you did was to shift the "location" from "in my mind" to "some other world" (Whatever that means. The idea of parallel worlds is an oxymoron anyways).
My alternative? I have none. For now, i simply have no idea why we sleep. I prefer to wait with my judgement until i have new useful puzzlepieces, instead of hastily "solving" stuff with a big invented hack.
In case you wonder: Yes, i'm aware about the infobits you described. I'm familiar with lucid dreaming and more, first hand and by analyzing "dreamlogs" of about a hundred lucid dreamers. I also have seen with my own eyes, how lucid dreamers connected to sensors were able to shift the measurements in a previously agreed pattern. Sure, it's amazing and fascinating - but it doesn't make me jump to exaggerated conclusions.
P.S.: There is another issue with how you discard the current "official" assumptions. You're treating sleep like an atom. So, as if sleep has exactly one purpose, one mechanic, etc... basically all sleep is homogenous and the same. That doesn't fit observation. There apparently are different phases of "sleeping", and there are phases where "lucid dreaming" is unprobable to happen - in fact, apparently most sleep even for lucid dreamers is spent unconscious. Thus, there is no reason why the effects which you used as counterarguments would conflict with the current official explanation - both COULD be the case - just perhaps not at the same time.
I have often thought about what really happens when you sleep, for me, I tend to get a feeling of loss when I wake up from a dream I remember, almost as if I was living another life. Could also explain why you feel a jolt when you're suddenly woken up, like a connection is broken or something.. Personally I just think that dreaming is the brains way to make sense of the information it has been given, but ideas like this are far more interesting 
