time dilation

Can someone patiently explain time dilation to me?

d = 5 396 264 244 000 or 5.4 billion kilometers

takes light 5 hours from our perspective to travel that distance

from the perspective of the light, it happens in less than a minute

If a clock were mounted to a particle of light, the mechanism of the clock - each atomic component of the clock - would register less than a minute passing as the light traveled that distance.

Why?

Supposedly time does stop completely, and that's why traveling backwards through time suddenly became less of an impossibility. Perhaps.

From what I've read, there are particles that travel faster than light, but nothing below lightspeed can accelerate to that speed or beyond.

Particles can travel faster than light does in substances. Water, for instance. I think light travels something like .75 c in water.