The image above is a picture of a few oscillations generated by a light wave traveling through three dimensional space. Fastest-ever flashgun captures image of light wave. The image was captured by means of ultraviolet radiation generated by excited electrons as the wave moved through neon gas with the ray trace lasting billionths of a billionth of a second.
What this image suggests is that the ‘speed of light' is not the speed of light because it is the speed of light but rather that light moves through the energy field at a certain speed because the speed is limited by interactions with the surrounding field (impedance is generated by the field as the radiant energy disturbs the entropy of the surrounding field).
The image above is intended to suggest how this works. The forward motion in the field is impeded by the resistance offered by the field (perhaps we could think of tension building up in a compressed spring) and the light wave, which is also feeling pressure from behind as it vacates a position in the energy field (the uncoiling spring) reacts by changing direction. It more or less runs an obstacle course through the energy field as it is pushed through the energy field in order to restore the field entropy. This spring-like pushing effect would be a constant property of the field such that if the electromagnetic energy increases, so does the loading of the tension on this spring, such that higher energy light waves display this property of having a higher frequency and a shorter wave length, while the amplitude of the wave is determined by the quantity of the radiation (and therefore controls the extent to which the surrounding field becomes ‘polarized' and involved in the process of wave propagation).
If we examine the same image again we can interpret what we are seeing as the phenomenon of time dilation. Underlying the reality we perceive around us is the Quantum reality (atoms) and according to the Unified Field Theory we understand that no quantum process can occur faster than the mediating process will allow. The photon is the ‘mediating particle' of electromagnetism and since this is the Unified Field Theory, therefore it logically follows that in some way or another the photon is found to be the mediating factor for all quantum processes. We understand that all fields are manifestations of one field, and that therefore the three dimensional warped space field which composes most of the visible universe is just one more manifestation of that shape shifting chameleon known as energy. Energy and space is equivalent (we could say that such and such a number of joules of energy is the equivalent of what we would perceive as being one square meter of three dimensional space). The inverse square law describes the distribution of the energy within this field.
As the density of the field energy increases so does the impedance it offers to a disturbance in the entropy of the field. On the left we would see a light wave in our reference frame (out in space perhaps, where the ‘quantum clock' is running faster) and on the right we see the same wavelength in gravitational field (where the quantum clock is running slower). The speed of light is understood to be relative to the frame in which it occurs (relative in relation to the density of the energy field) and so therefore the lightwave propagates slower through space and it also becomes ‘blue-shifted' when it propagates through a location lower in the gravitational field. The result is ‘time dilation' since the underlying quantum processes are dependant upon this propagation (this then creates a time-like phenomenon as the universal energy field seeks to maintain its current state of quasi-entropy and thus is found to be in constant motion as discordant elements disturb this entropy and are therefore found to be in constant motion, which then results in quantum processes occurring in sequence, which we then perceive as a time-like phenomenon). The electromagnetic wave propagates slower through a denser field (quantum time dilates and slows down) but at the same the wave is blue shifted which conserves momentum in these quantum processes.
If we accept the explanation of the time like phenomenon offered by the Unified Field Theory then what this means is that ‘space-time' is a mathematical fiction. Calculations that suggest that ‘anything going faster than light travels backwards in time' are meaningless paradoxes generated by a mathematical fiction, which is useful for generating those four dimensional space-time diagrams or for programming certain types of computer simulations, but not much else. This ‘four dimensional space-time' does not correspond to anything that actually exists in the real world (‘time' is not a ‘dimension' but rather a by product of the state of pseudo-entropy that exists in the present universe...this ‘pseudo-entropy' describes a way of arranging energy so that finite energy that is not an infinite elastic band can somehow coexist in an infinite void, with the solution taking the form of energy arranged in the form of ‘matter' surrounded by a ‘warped space field bubble' in which the majority of the energy of the universe then exists in a state of quasi-entropy, with constant motion being the result as matter is responsible for generating constant varieties of field disruptions which can only be resolved by ‘pushing them out the way', thus restoring the entropy of one part of the field by transferring the problem to another location...time dilation is one of the consequences of the Inverse Square Law and varying field density that results in this arrangement which is to say that time dilation is a consequence of the relativity of momentum...).