[TophWells]

>“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”

Perhaps the restart time is necessary to update the shared state. Take the mind out of the universe, review its acquired experiences and integrate them into the combined soul, then reboot the mind and send it on its way.

Odd that he should be conscious for this part though. I suppose the afterlife state is equivalent to dreaming: the brain has to review and absorb the day's memories, and semi-conscious hallucinations are an interesting side-effect.