I consider the brains just an antenna to your consciousness, which resides in Cosmos and you connect to it through the "thread of life" (if that is cut off, then your physical body is dead or at least not attached to your consciousness anymore and another consciousness may take over if physical body was able to revive). When you sleep you are tripping in Cosmos through your consciousness. 

You have nice technique to identify your Cosmos tripping, I nowadays just know that I am in a dream state and do not need to verify it, also able to be director and "cut" the dream if it progress into the wrong direction.