Time is your name for the motion of consciousness. Every possible event that can happen in space and time happens NOW, at once, simultaneous. There is no past, there is no future, only now, though we have to use time based language so we can talk. It's like arithmetic, as soon as you know the system, you know that every problem in numbers is already answered. The principle of arithmetic already knows the cube root of six, but it may take us what we call time, a few seconds, to find out what the answer has always been. The cube root of 8 is 2, the cube root of 1 is 1. Every event, every possible thing that can happen has already happened. Then why do we live through all these experiences in this "time" if everything's already done? The point is not that it's done, but that we have infinite choice. Our choices lead us to our experiences, and with experience we realize that we are not the little creatures we seem to be. We're inter-dimensional expressions of life, mirrors of spirit.
Lets use the metaphor of underwater for example, the pattern represents the paths we took, the turns we made! And every possible other turn, we could have made, that we have made in parallel lifetimes, alternate lifetimes. We fly high and we have perspective! We see every choice and fork and crossroad. But the lower we fly, the more we lose perspective on all the other choices is gone! We focus on detail: daily, hourly, minutely detail, alternate lifetimes forgotten! Nothing in space-time is really there, the pattern is a visual aid you've built, it's your way of understanding simultaneous lifetimes. There are many metaphors for lives in space-time, as there are disciplines that fascinate you. If you loved photography, your metaphor could have turned on levels of focus. Focus makes one point sharp and everything else a blur. We focus on one lifetime and we think that's all there is. But all those other aspects, the misty ones we take for dreams and wishes and might-have-beens, they're as real as any other. We choose our focus. This is why we're fascinated with physics, quantum mechanics, with timelessness. None of its possible but all of its true. No past lives, no future lives, zoom down to one point, believe its moving and we've invented time. Get involved and we think its the only life there is.
“Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.” ~ Alan Alda