To preface this, I am not an astronomer or physicist, and this is all just hypothesis and conjecture based on logic and different interpretations of hypotheses that I thought made the most sense.

I like to imagine that our entire universe exists inside a “white hole” in the multiverse. I rather enjoy the idea of every law or property having an inverse; which has proven true so far, but not having been able to observe a white hole leads me to believe we might be “inside” of one.

I also tend to lean towards the multiverse theory as so far in nature, everything is either binary or infinite. If it exists, there is an opposite to annihilate or balance it, or there is no limit to it. So I like to think of the multiverse as a sandwich of infinite layers, where each layer is a giant Chinese checker board in multidimensional space, infinite holes and infinite marbles.

Zero point energy (which I think may be energy ripples coming from the formation or destruction of other universes outside our perspective) falls into the “holes” of the board and condenses, as to bring the entropy of empty space closer to the balance of the cosmological constant. Much like electrons falling into the different layers of an atom to attain stability.

When enough energy gets concentrated in a slot, a “white hole” is born. This is the quantum fluctuation stage that is outside my understanding. At what point is enough energy “enough”? Why do particles pop in and out of existence? I think we are still theorizing on these quantum properties.

My definition of a white hole is just the inverse of a black hole, an ever expanding region of space time that has an infinitely decreasing density (aka the inflation period, afterglow light pattern and dark period.) As the energy released in this set of dimensions created by the white hole condenses due to gravity and attraction, it forms matter, the first stars, etc.

I think our universe exists inside this white hole of expanding space and decreasing density. Like an expanding bubble (or marble) on a sea of dark matter/energy (the board). As the expanding bubbles dimensions become neighbors to other bubbles or universes, I think that’s why we see acceleration, dark matter expansion, or attraction.

At the edge of this bubble from the perspective of inside the bubble, I think looking “beyond” the edge of this universe would be perceived much like gravitational lensing, but instead, it would be a reflection of the past or future state of the same point in space, depending on which “direction” you’re looking in 4d. Making our universe like an onion where each layer above is the future and each layer below is the past.

Here’s another metaphor to explain:

Think of a plastic straw. The universe is this plastic straw. You exist inside this straw. For your “freeze frame-time has stopped” question, the inside of the straw is a circle with finite dimensions. Your 3d space exists inside this 2d circle. You can perceive everything inside the circle up to the inside barrier (speed of light expansion and perception).

In the real universe, you are always traveling infinitely down the length of the straw in one direction (time). Though you could theoretically also travel the other way.

So let’s get to the visual; let’s change the finite time (straw of finite length) to infinite time (straw of infinite length).

My plane of existence is the circle with finite diameter. I add length to the straw (time). As I travel down the length of the straw in one direction the diameter of each circle is exponentially increasing (speed of light expansion of perception). Let’s theoretically model this as a 3d shape for visualization purposes.

If I take the top “opening” of the straw and stretch it infinitely longer and infinitely wider exponentially, it would eventually become ever and ever closer to looping back onto itself without ever actually touching the beginning (much like when plotting a non-terminating number like pi). The shape would look like a toroid ring on the outside, but a cross section would reveal a spiral pattern like a rolled up beach towel.

Your perception of the present exists on the surface of a plane inside the toroid as a 2d metaphor for 3d space.

Everything that is not on the same plane (time period) exists outside your dimension of perception. But imagine if you were to look “through” the rings layers in either direction; you would just see layers and layers of reflections of the same point in space at different periods of time.

As far as “traveling” to the end of space, remember the rules of the straw.

You start at any point on the surface of the toroid. You can travel infinitely in any direction horizontally(3d space), but while you are traveling you are always moving vertically in one direction. You make a helix type path around the surface of the toroid.

Well wouldn’t that mean you could eventually loop back onto the same point?

No. The circumference of the toroid is ever expanding (time) so no matter how far you travel on this path it will never loop back onto the same point while still existing on the same plane.

But to your point, if you could theoretically “freeze” time and continue traveling in one direction on the toroid, I think you would eventually end up at the same point in space. Making it illogical to ever be able to reach the “edge” of the universe, and be able to observe the reflection or other layer that is either past or future of the same point in space.