This kind of thinking hurts my head, seriously.

I am just a guy who is insanely interested in space, and do not have any formal knowledge, FYI.

I always think of the "big bang" as the question everybody has heard one time or another: "What came first: the chicken or the egg?"

What I am referring to is, for there to be a chicken there must be an egg. For there to be an egg, there must be a chicken. And around and around we go. For there to be a cause and effect that would constitute a big bang, something had to have existed (gases, immense heat, pressure, etc). Therefore, something DID exist before the big bang, technically speaking. But at what point can something not exist. How does anything come from nothing? That would lead me to believe that time is forever infinite, as is space. That's what I can't wrap my head around.

I guess it all depends on which side of the big bang theory you're taking: did the Universe exist before the big bang, or was it created by. Both sides to that are mind-boggling as one theory dictates that the Universe is infinite, and the other dictates that the Universe is finite. But for the Universe to have a beginning and an end(?), what caused this massive explosion to begin with?

I'm going to lay down and let my brain cool off.