I am 100% convince that this is the shape of the universe, but because it has to represent higher dimensions than we can directly perceive, the dimensions seen in this gif are representative and not literal. It's just a gif from google images I grabbed quick to post the concept here and see if anyone else had any similar thoughts. But the spiral around the surface of the sphere space is all of reality that we can directly see and interact with, and the space in the middle is the rest of existence, higher and lower planes of existence seemingly superimposed on top of each other from our perspective because we cannot intuitively comprehend the directionality of those spaces. Also the reason gravity seems like it's just things trying to infinitely go in some impossible to fully comprehend direction that we call down is because it happens when things are massive enough to push out against the fabric of spacetime that makes up the spiral we're in along the outer surface of existence so because the divots are pushing out into literally nothing it it presents as if things are infinitely falling nowhere. This is also why black holes ultimately just lead infinitely nowhere until they radiate away everything they stole back into the system and disappear as if patched by reality itself. It looks that way because it is. And if you're wondering why it's a spiral just gimme one sec.
Look through the sphere so you see both sides of the spiral and think about what you see. I need to finally go to bed now, but I had to say this somewhere just to get it out first before I could.