The mind has been dealing with parallel universes for some time. Early man in many parts of the world believed in a dream world that was just as real as the conscious world. Many wonderful things happen there, especially for those who realized how to live in it.
Most of our stories and beliefs come from the world of the imagination, except revelation which discernment and the virtues allow us to come to understand better. Our myths of creation, and how to live the good life come from our understanding of all the realities.
Ed Witten's M-theory says that there are eleven dimensions. The eleventh resolves the other five string theories and also gives us the parallel universes and another spacial dimension that can be called a membrane, which can be as small as a vibrating string of as big as the universe. Perhaps there were a couple membranes as large as the universe that came close to each other that caused a big bang?
Maybe there are dense particles that can prove a supersymmetry to M- theory and that we will soon discover these "sparticles" with the atom smashers?
For more information see Nova "The Elegant Universe" Part Three: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3014_elegant.html
CERN Courier: Supersymmetry physics etc.. http://www.cerncourier.com/main/article/40/10/19
