My theory about time is it exists in totality, like a large tree with infinite branches.

We're just the ants crawling up the surface, choosing each path as the branches fork.

All possible futures exist, and all possible pasts exist. We're too embedded in the system to see it - so we meld free will with a wholly deterministic system.

... and what if dreams were really fragments of these possible "branches" bleeding through into our minds? That would make a good story.