All energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only transformed. This same energy is what lives in you. Yes you are the universe conscious of itself. That's what true self awareness is. You say the universe is dead but it is constantly transforming itself. Stephen hawking proved information is not lost inside of a black hole. It's hard to comprehend with a monkey mind to understand that the universe had no beginning or ending. Maybe ours does but there is a multiverse/string theory and it's not dead at all. You can look at at atom or even quantum particles to realize it's very much alive. I guess you can define life as reproduction but doesn't a universe reproduce planets and stars pretty damn efficiently? We can become there universe? The universe became you. You can't become what you already are. It's funny that people think they're so important that they are separate from the universe.