I’m a massive Dallas fan. And I love the Dream Season. And I wish they’d never brought Bobby back because I liked the show without him because it gave Pam a chance to actually become her own character instead of being mostly “Bobby Ewing’s wife”. However, the scene has led to some quite fascinating alternate reality theories and discussions. There are two timelines on Dallas, one where Bobby dies and one where he didn’t. This is most notably due to the fact that they kinda forgot to tell the Knots Landing (the show’s spin-off) writers that Bobby was coming back, so, he remained dead on that show. I find this… intriguing?
But - this is Star Trek, not Dallas. Trek’s business IS alternate realities, timelines, things that happen that actually DIDN’T happen, etc. In fact, of the most famous and fan favorite TNG episodes literally has half a life happening for a character and it’s not even real (except to him). The whole thing is a trope Trek has used before. And they planned on using another variation of it on that DS9 episode… what was it called? “Far Beyond The Stars”?
tl;dr: Star Trek is no stranger to variations of the “Bobby Ewing under the shower” trope. It’s just that, with this PIC purgatory idea, it would on a much bigger scale. But the trope itself? It’s a basic building block of quite a few Trek episodes.