That your position/argument is even stronger than the OP because consciousness is actually present during sleep.
hmmm… indeed.
And now you have a crack of an idea of where the origin of “soul” or “spirit” (or the like) comes from.
The other part of it occurs when you have someone die, yet they linger “in you” in sense as if they are perfectly still alive.
Mix those together, and give a human brain freedom to deduce without articulate examination of the matter empirically (which, we still cannot fully do), and you have the concept begin.
Personally, if there is something more…fuck.
I mean I already think MMORPG’s take grinding to the extreme. I’d be pretty let down to find out that reality works by a similar set of rules whereby it’s like Lamb Chop’s ending credits “Song that never ends”.
No thank you. 