How do you think time travel would work?

[Audball]

This has always been a question that rattles in my head from time to time. I know there are probably some super scientific reasons why time travel would or wouldn't work, but I'm more interested in the ways that YOUR brain seems okay with. I guess I'm just looking for creative examples of how people may explain it in fiction.

My thoughts on it are an example:
My brain likes to think that "Time Travel" wouldn't quite REALLY exist how it's portrayed, but instead would be a kinda inter-universal travel. If I wanted to travel from today (October 12, 2024) to, say, August 12th, 1997, then the time machine would somehow find and lock onto a universe where (assuming multiverse theory is true) the universe is almost exactly like our own, except it started later than our universe, so we're coexisting in the omniverse at the exact same time, but while in THIS universe it is October 12, 2024, in the OTHER universe it is August 12, 1997.

Here is a visual example I whipped up in MS Paint.


I'd love to here anyone elses ideas! I know this is probably a very "out there" topic, but it's something nonetheless I think!

[Misanthropic Monster™]

What you describe wouldn't really be time travel, so much as interdimensional travel, if you assume we exist in a multiverse, another universe that was similar to ours, but much earlier in time wouldn't be the same timeline, because past versions of ourselves wouldn't exist there.

That is how I perceive your way of explaining it anyway! Maybe I've misunderstood.

[Inlusione]

This is one of the ways in which paradoxes and logical inconsistencies that are usually present in time travel theories and stories are avoided, but you'll yet again encounter yourself in that universe if you want to and your presence will be at least possibly known by "you from that universe" at some point in time - basically it's relocating the paradox of encountering oneself in that universe instead of your own.

This idea where every decision and event creates a new branching universe was used in a few recent shows that I've watched and it was a bit more interesting to see this instead of the classics with the grandfather paradox and other anomalies that already became oversaturated. Based on your idea, your consciousness transfer between universes and you simply cease to exist in the current reality altogether by being completely transferred to the other, in a similar way in which we use to simply commute. It's interesting, but it might get a bit messy in the long run. I also like the idea of information being sent back in time, allowing the past to be influenced without physical presence - it's also really messy as we've seen the consequences in various media but fun nonetheless. It's a nice topic and I've always been drawn to these ideas and all the mind-boggling implications, paradoxes and rabbit holes and I'm still waiting for new shows, movies and games based on this to appear, I don't seem to get enough of it already.