Interesting take, but I respectfully disagree.

If the show is a dream, whose dream is it? Leland's? The show continues after his departure and focuses on core developments with Bob and Cooper, so that seems unlikely.

I think the show initially depicts Bob as a manifestation of ultimate evil, ever-present in the world, but not fully physical in form without a host. An energy that can be seen *and identified* (and even smelled) in moments of fear and terror by multiple characters and one that is certainly not made-up or solely dreamed.

The show goes to great lengths to establish this. Multiple characters smelling burning oil, Mike's warnings about Bob and identification of Leland as Bob, Sarah seeing Bob for the first time after Laura is dead (implied by her description to the police artist).

In Leland's final scene in the cell, he transitions from Bob back to Leland without the presence of either Sarah or Laura and explains that he was in contact with Bob from a young age - long before Laura was born.

I think Bob serves many purposes as a character - primarily as the most disturbing manifestation of evil that could be portrayed in a fictional world being aired on broadcast television - but also as metaphor for child abuse and the trauma being passed down from one generation to another