Sony 5 disc home CD Player skipping sporadically?

Simply put, the laser eye is going bad. You can open it up and try to adjust the sensitivity pots, But I don't recommend that, because if you don't know what your doing, you could render it completely useless altogether. The laser pickups don't last forever, and the older they get, the weaker the beam it reflects back. I'd say it's time for a new one.