A parallel universe (As the name infers) is almost identical to ours with distinguishing variations however, maybe your evil in that universe, or a cow person, the possibilities are limitless. The point being in a parallel universe there are always similarities to your "home" universe. In an alternate dimension you are leaving this plane of existence into a separate one where they may be no earth at all but rather a planet of flesh eating frog men.

Assalam-o-alikum! Concerning philosophy, my opinion, one cannot access the parallel universe, but could/might the alternate dimension. (could try to explain, if intrested)

I say there are so many different religions that if it was true we should all have one religion. How many different stories were told. Confusing if you ask me. I tend to live in a dimensional world.

Generally, when they are talking about alternate or "extra" dimensions, they're usually referring to spatial dimensions that we cannot perceive because we are pinned to our 3 dimensional "brane". In some theories, these extra dimensions are infinite and extend at right angles to our 3 dimensions, though it's very hard to picture 4 or more dimensions like this. In string theory, they are often referring to very tiny dimensions that are so small you cannot perceive them even with the most powerful instruments available (particle accelerators). As for parallel universes, that usually refers to Universe that may exist on another set of dimensions that are not connected to our Universe. As such, they *may* be impossible to detect, but there may be some influence exerted between the Universes that we have not yet learned to measure.

"in order to travel to parallel/alternate universes/planes of existence one must travel in a spatial direction/dimension besides the standard ones" "Additional dimensions Theories such as string theory and M-theory predict that physical space in general has in fact 10 and 11 dimensions, respectively. The extra dimensions are spacelike. We perceive only three spatial dimensions, and no physical experiments have confirmed the reality of additional dimensions. A possible explanation that has been suggested is that space acts as if it were "curled up" in the extra dimensions on a subatomic scale, possibly at the quark/string level of scale or below. Another less-held fringe view asserts that dimensions beyond the fourth progressively condense timelines and universes into single spatial points in the above dimension, until the tenth, where a 0-dimensional point equates to all possible timelines in all possible universes. Literature: Perhaps the most basic way in which the word dimension is used in literature is as a hyperbolic synonym for feature, attribute, aspect, or magnitude. Frequently the hyperbole is quite literal as in he's so 2-dimensional, meaning that one can see at a glance what he is. This contrasts with 3-dimensional objects which have an interior that is hidden from view. Science fiction texts often mention the concept of dimension, when really referring to parallel universes, alternate universes, or other planes of existence. This usage is derived from the idea that in order to travel to parallel/alternate universes/planes of existence one must travel in a spatial direction/dimension besides the standard ones. In effect, the other universes/planes are just a small distance away from our own, but the distance is in a fourth (or higher) spatial dimension, not the standard ones. One of the most heralded science fiction novellas regarding true geometric dimensionality, and often recommended as a starting point for those just starting to investigate such matters, is the 1884 novel Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott. Isaac Asimov, in his foreword to the Signet Classics 1984 edition, described Flatland as "The best introduction one can find into the manner of perceiving dimensions." Another reference would be the novel "A Wrinkle In Time" which uses the 5th Dimension as a way for Tesseracting the universe. Or in a better sense, folding the universe in half to move across it quickly." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimension Further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fiction_employing_parallel_universes