Parallel Universes

When I was younger I knew, with all my heart, that there was such a thing as a Parallel Universe. I just knew it. I used to think that there was someone somewhere outside of the Milky Way Galaxy that was exactly like me and that we were doing the same things at exactly the same times but in different galaxies. I came up with that idea after I was watching an episode of Nova. It was about space and our galaxy and how the cloudy formation that looked like clouds in the stars were, in fact, clouds of stars in an arm of our own Milky Way galaxy.

This fact excited me and scared me at the same time because it made our galaxy seem more real than it ever was to me at the time. And it was then that I realized that space was larger than we all thought.

I remember in 1999 I took a trip to Seaside, Florida with my ex-BF and one night we were on the roof, staring at the stars. Since there wasn't a whole lot of development on that side of Florida, we had a fairly clear view of the night sky. He asked me why a certain cloud cluster wasn't moving in the sky and I told him that that was an arm of our very own galaxy. He didn't believe me, of course, but I still thought it was a very beautiful moment in time because of the nature of the subject. I'm sure on a subconscious level, it made him feel like a grain of sand in our own universe. Maybe, maybe not. Either way, I know it made me feel significant and insignificant at the same time. And that's when I thought of my interdementional self. Was my "univeral twin" doing the same thing with the same "universal significant other" at the exact same time?

What if there wasn't just one "universal twin"? What if there's more? What if in every galaxy, there was a planet just like Earth? Would there be humans or higher beings? Would the Earths be where we are now or more advanced or more primitive? What if these Earths were at different stages of civilizations? Like, one Earth was in the year 1860, another was in the year 2285? Then, what would happen to our perception of time?

I'm not a mathematical genius or a physicist or a scientist or an astronomer (although, I've always wanted to be one) so I can't properly explain the properties of our known universe and time and space and all that BUT - I know that deep down, space and time are illusions. I know I'm not the only non-genius to realize that. How can your accurately measure space? Like, Outer Space? Those measurements - nanometres, light years - we, as normal humans, can barely grasp those concepts because we haven't seen it properly measured out. It's hard to visualize something so small or so large. Well, for me anyways. The closest I ever got was calculating the distance of the closest galaxy: the Andromeda Galaxy using basic math with my 10th grade Science teacher. It took 8-10 pieces of paper, front and back. I don't remember the calculation but that's when I knew I didn't have the math skills to be a proper astronomer!
It did, however, put things into a better perspective for me. But I still find it hard to visualize light years. I just know that 2.5 million light years away and farther, I have galactic "twins" and maybe we're doing the same things right now OR maybe there are some that are doing the opposite of what we're doing right now...
Like maybe there are Bizarro Universes out there...