I keep zooming in and out like a fucking psychopath. Blink, and none of this is real. If none of this is real, nothing matters. But not in a nihilistic way, more of a “Yippie yi yo!” sort of way. If nothing is real and nothing matters, then everything is up to us, and we are the creators of our own reality. We are source. What we say goes. Or something.

I mean that, actually. And just for the non-magical, hyperrealistic skeptics out there, I’ll link some books down below that use some science (or attempt to use some science, rather) to back it all up. You can have whatever you want in this life, but you have to believe that it’s already yours. Sadly, there are a lot of things that I want that I don’t believe are already mine. But if everyone was good at manifesting, we would all have money, or a yacht, or be the controversially younger girlfriend to an otherwise unproblematic actor who’s won several Oscars. Most of us accept what we know, what we’ve experienced and seemingly always will, and never think to push against this.

You can make a lot of weird shit happen by thinking a little bit differently. But it’s deeper than a ‘mindset shift,’ and you can’t really tell someone who struggles with mental illness (hey) to just… adopt a different mindset. Because if everyone could just magically decide to be happy, then Big Pharma wouldn’t exist, people would be way nicer on Threads, and I would be the controversially younger girlfriend to an otherwise unproblematic actor who’s won several Oscars (because utopia, or whatever).

It’s a delicate balance. It’s also hard to take a Joe Dispenza meditation seriously the first few or a dozen times.

Lauren’s Guide to Getting Whatever the Fuck You Want

1. What the fuck do you want? Write it down. Be insanely intentional. Be painfully clear. Don’t just say that you want a new job. What kind of job? How much money do you want to make? Do you want them to send you to Fiji twice a year? What kind of insurance benefits?

If you’re manifesting an SP (Specific Person, not to be confused with an FP, which is a Favorite Person, and carries a negative connotation), be specific. Is this someone you already know? Or are you just trying to attract your dream person? Write down their qualities. If they’re someone you already know and it isn’t romantic yet… write down what you want to happen. Select the version of them that you want to appear in your life. Be specific. Be. Spe. Ci. Fic.

2. Great. Before we can get into affirmations/signals/the concept of ‘deciding,’ we have to figure out what the fuck is wrong with you.

If you grew up with parents who viewed money as a negative, unattainable thing, you’re gonna have to journal that one out before you can attract more money into your life (and this is something I am about to start working on pretty heavily lol). Do you have low self-worth? Does a partner seem unattainable? Do you operate under the general assumption that relationships will never work out to the point where it’s just a subconscious thought that you aren’t even aware of anymore? (Eventually I’ll write a separate thing about manifesting an SP, because that’s it’s own insane lesson). Write it down. Write down all of your current beliefs.

3. Now we need some new beliefs. If you wrote down, “Romantic relationships never work out for me,” you have two options: You can rewrite it, i.e., “Romantic relationships always work out for me;” you can write it like you already have it, i.e. “I am in a loving relationship;” or you can write it in future tense, i.e. “I will be in a loving romantic relationship.”

4. Turn your new beliefs into affirmations, as in statements that you either write down or repeat to yourself every day, multiple times a day. You can write them on or around your mirror so you see them while getting dressed, doing your makeup, or before you leave your house. You can record these statements into the Parrot app so they repeat back to you on a loop that you can play in the background while you go about your day or while you sleep. Etc.

Bonus: You can find YouTube videos that contain hours of repeated positive affirmations (linked below), or you can listen to subliminals while you sleep. You can also listen to healing frequencies combined with subliminals. (Some manifestation girlies will tell you that subliminals only work if its your own voice/your own manifestations, but I think they work regardless).

5. Writing down and repeating affirmations is not enough. I mean, you could stop here for now, because it’s a great start. But, you gotta meditate. You gotta do it every day, too.

You got some options here, too: You can listen to a guided meditation, or you can put on the 4-7hz frequency and just… visualize what you want to happen. You know those daydreams we have where we just play out a bunch of wild scenarios without even thinking twice about it? Do that, but think about it. Do it with intention.

6. You need to take action that aligns with the thing you want. Affirmations help raise your magnetism and allow you to shift into the person who already has the thing that you want.

So I ask yous: What would the version of you who already has what you want be doing right now?

You know what they wouldn’t be doing? Refreshing their email every hour to see if that job acceptance came in, or checking their story views to see if their SP saw the photo they posted. If you already had the job or the person, you wouldn’t be checking for it. Make sense?

Maybe you want to live in a luxury apartment building that has a gym. Cool, start working out in your bedroom. Maybe you want to be an author. Cool, start going to book events and meeting other authors.

7. Do all of this consistently. Affirmations, meditating, visualizing, and taking action. Consistency is key. Lather, rinse, repeat.

My personal method of choice:

First off, everything changed when I read Joe Dispenza’s book Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. He gets science-y. There is also Mind Magic by James R. Doty and You Are the Placebo by Dr. Joe Dispenza, which get real science-y with it. As someone with witchcraft in their literal bloodline, I didn’t need the science to be convinced… but it certainly helped.

• I like to use a method I learned from House of Lilith on TikTok. She refers to affirmations as prayer, and the things we want as signals. So, create the signal, craft the affirmations, take the aligned action, and write down the evidence. Did you manifest something out of thin air today? Did you get a free cup of coffee, or did you get an offer to travel to a different country for free? Did you get a bunch of new followers? Did someone unexpectedly compliment you or your energy? These are all things that prove your magnetism is growing, that you’re capable of attracting incredible things - no matter how big or small these things are. On the days you get discouraged, when you’re wondering why the big thing you want hasn’t arrived yet, it’s vital to look at all the other things you’ve made happen in order to remind yourself just how powerful you are.

• I don’t do this every day, but I like to start my day with what’s called ‘robotic’ affirmations. While I’m putting my makeup on, I put on an Apex Mind by Sarah video in which she repeats positive affirmations in order to “brainwash” you into believing them. You can only consciously believe and tell yourself things so much… it’s the subconscious that controls everything, and the subconscious that needs to change. That’s what the journaling, the meditating, the subliminals, and the affirmations are for.

• When manifesting an SP, or wanting my SP to treat me a certain way, I write myself a letter from them stating exactly what I’d like them to say or do. I put on 4-7hz and really let myself get lost in this and write without stopping or thinking twice/second-guessing. You can also write yourself a letter from money itself, the universe, the job you want. This is a version of what’s known as scripting. Sadly for me, the whole writing a journal entry dated a year from now or writing the thing I want as if it’s already happened to me doesn’t work for me. The letter method just feels more real and personal.

• I try to do a guided meditation every morning, even if it’s just for 5 minutes. If not, I put on 4-7hz and have a chat with my higher self. (More on that in another woo-woo post later probably.

• I just decide. Deciding is hard, and not for the faint of heart. It also doesn’t always work for me because I’m just not there yet in my self-concept (which is a whooole ‘nother aspect of manifestation that could be a post in and of itself). But you can just decide something will happen, and give it a time frame down to the minute. Remember: you don’t need to know how something will happen. That’s up to the universe. You just have to want the thing and ask for it.

My other favorite manifestation gurus:

• Courtney Stephenson | Court has an amazing workbook that takes you through everything I mentioned above but in much more detail, and it’s GUIDED.

• LoveCoachKayla | This is where the whole ‘decide’ thing got jammed into my brain. She focuses a lot on SP stuff, but she also talks about revision (which is baffling, real, and could also be another post).

• MagicMeganMichele | This is more for the ‘divine feminine’ girlies who align cycle-tracking with the moon and shit, but she says some cool stuff about detaching from certain energies/calling your energy back/incorporating breathwork into manifestation.

• Healingforhotmesses | Mandi has a workbook about shadow work, which is attacking all those awful beliefs head-on and really sitting and observing and committing to changing. It’s not easy by any means, but I love it so.

Some notes:

I realize this can all sound incredibly privileged, but you’re going to assume the negative anyway… why not assume the positive?

None of this replaces a therapist, which I also have. None of this replaces medication, which I am also on.

In the last two-and-a-half months, I’ve manifested: a new apartment that is $600 cheaper than what I was paying before that has an in-unit washer/dryer and a rooftop, an all-expenses-paid trip to London, VIP tickets to Warped Tour DC, a paid commercial for a fragrance brand, a successful GoFundMe campaign to cover my emergency moving expenses, hitting 20,000+ followers on Instagram, and getting some influencer-style PR boxes from King of the Hill and Lord of the Rings.

Anything is possible. I love you. More soon.

”my head has thoughts / what a ridiculous place to start…” well, it’s friday. at the time of writing, it’s been five fridays since i moved out of my old apartment, and six fridays since I left my very-bad-no-good-horrible relationship.

i have no concept of time.

time also doesn’t seem to exist in the Backrooms, which i just went and saw for the second time with my roommate (mainly because A24 promised a 15-minute post-credits scene that i personally thought was a whole bunch of nothing). putting on my annoyingly analytical philosophical metaphysical weird bitch film ‘critic’ brain, i started breaking it all down bit by bit in terms of what truly makes the backrooms (and even the endless subway station in Exit 8) so very spooky-ooky. it’s the concept of liminal space. that’s what made the original photo go viral in the first place, right? the yellow carpeting and wallpaper of an empty room in the back of a HobbyTown in OshKosh, Wisconsin. the fluorescent lighting, which hums so very loud in the film.

in the movie, as well as Kane Parsons’ original YouTube series, the backrooms go on for what feels like eternity. there are things that look like they belong in our world, i.e. a swimming pool, a door, a window, but it’s not quite right i.e. the door opens to a wall, the door is on the ceiling. it’s familiar but unfamiliar (see also: uncanny), and it’s empty. therefore, god only knows what the fuck is lurking around the corner. and without spoiling anything at all (and i promise that any and all spoilers will always be marked as such), there’s an overarching desire to find out what the fuck the backrooms even are, or how they came to be in the first place. because the most terrifying thing about it is that it just… is. and that *takes extremely long bong rip* is why conspiracy theories exist, why Reddit is worth a billion dollars. everything, everything, has to have a why. or else. and then we get into our own fun endless loop of why why why. like why i spent a considerable amount of time with someone who made me feel really really bad about myself. or why it ended the way it did. or why it feels the most over out of any relationship i’ve ever had even though it was definitely the most serious and life-altering.

no idea. i don’t have a why.

it was bad and now it’s over. and i’m sort of in a weird place where my career fucking rocks an all this cool stuff keeps happening but i feel emotionally vacant and also have maybe three pennies left to my name.

in the last six weeks i have:

• packed up and cleaned a two-floor apartment

• moved into a new apartment

• ended my shitty relationship

• went on an all-expenses-paid trip to london for a TV show set visit

• signed my first brand deal and got sent to Warped Tour DC for free

• booked and filmed my first paid commercial

• have literally had to schedule time to cry because it has truly been ‘go-go, not cry-cry’

and i feel weird going into details about the breakup and what i endured mainly because like eight years ago this guy i’ve only ever known online made this super weird blogspot post dedicated to me about ‘all the guys who always hurt you all the time’ and then one time this girl i also only knew online said this:

when in reality it’s just kinda like… the dating sphere sucks and always has/always will. and i write poems about the bad men i date because i just don’t feel called to write about the good stuff (and the good ladies, for that matter). not to compare myself to Hayley Williams or Olivia Rodrigo or taylor swift, but it’s kinda like that in terms of real shit stuff making for a particularly strong piece. ‘driver’s license’ and ‘good for you’? bangers. the entirety of Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party? banger. ‘trouble’ and ‘blank space’? bangers. and don’t even get me started on Lana Del Rey: her entire discography AND unreleased catalog also fueled my writing-about-men fire probably more than anything else on this planet… though her happy-in-love songs still have edge. ‘White Feather Hawktail Deer Hunter’ sounds like casting a spell after midnight. so i’ll get there eventually.

back to the point: i will eventually open up about how bad my last relationship was in the way i used to open up about PTSD and trauma and ED - in a way that i think will be helpful to people going through the same thing. because this time around was different. very different. it was like a full-body and life reset, and now i’m basically an only child (but more on that in another post).

and then there’s the whole thing with my former living situation. and The Evil Old Lady Who Lived in the Basement. but, baby steps!

i will say that the brightest spot, however, was how many people rallied to help me move out of that place. and were excited to help me move all of my shit and get the absolutely fuck out of there. some of whom are the ones who urged me to make a GoFundMe because i had to be out 20 days early and spent all of my remaining cash on getting a moving service, buying new furniture, making sure my sweet potato kitty cats were all good and safe. i also spent an embarrassing amount of money on my ex-partner in what i’m going to call abuse-induced psychosis. but again, not ready to go into all of that yet.

TLDR; i have community in new york city and across the whole world it seems. and that feels… i mean it’s like having superpowers, honestly. knowing that you really can get by with a little help from your friends. it’s everything.

and i still have a book coming out. it’s going to be an in-person coven effort to get the cover design to look how we want it and y’all are not ready.

also, at the end of every substack post from here on out i’m going to do a little recommendation round-up since there are so many things i don’t end up getting to give my little opinion on for work (and we don’t report on music etc. etc.) so! today is just two thing thangs because i am very tired and it is very hot in new york. ok bye!

Backrooms (2026) dir. Kane Parsons: B-

once this hits streaming it’ll be on in the background as one of those ‘movies i’ve seen so many times that are very uncomfortable and shouldn’t be comforting but just kind of are.’ there is also a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it needle drop featuring nothing other than Ulterior Motives, the once-lost 80s song… and it still blows my mind to see it in the end credits with the proper songwriters/performers.

however, with studios deciding to give Kane Parsons and Curry Barker (Obsession) big opportunities in addition to green-lighting a whole bunch of projects based on YouTube/meme culture… i can’t help but yearn for Marble Hornets.

see also:

Marble Hornets (2009-2014) dir. Troy Wagner, Joseph DeLage, and Tim Sutton: A-

After Slenderman was born amongst the pages of a now-defunct forum known as Something Awful, three dudes made one hell of a found-footage series based around the mythos of this very tall, very slender man who terrorizes everyone he comes into contact with. and by terrorize i mean everyone either goes missing, loses complete and total sense of time and overall being, and holds their bestie at gunpoint. Plus, these dudes, in an age where YouTube quality was still semi-shit, managed to use some Adobe editing software to get Slenderman into the video. and i had nightmares. nightmares!

This month got away from me, but I haven’t stopped thinking about Laura.

I got into Twin Peaks in 2016, after my violent sexual assault at the hands of someone in my MFA program. The funny thing about graduating is that your records go in a folder somewhere, and that the school is relieved that you are no longer their problem. All the work you put into gathering witness statements, Title IX forms, session after session with so-called legal aides who advise you to call the whole thing off lest your abuser decide to sue for defamation… poof. I like to think my ghost roams the halls, that every single member of administration who failed me can still hear my wailing echoing off the walls in that tall, sad building.

Anyway, it’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month. It isn’t lost on me that Laura Palmer (portrayed by the brilliant Sheryl Lee) is a Patron Saint of sorts for women who endured, who were failed, and didn’t make it out alive in the end. It’s worth noting that David Lynch wanted to “show the cosmic ramifications of Laura Palmer’s death.” And I don’t think Lynch was necessarily referring to Josie Packard’s spirit going into a doorknob or Philip Jeffries becoming an anthropomorphic teapot when he said this. After Laura is killed by BOB, who is presented as an interdimensional entity that possesses her father, her soul becomes trapped in the Black Lodge. All of that pain and no rest for Laura Palmer. I often think about her sitting in that black velvet dress, telling Agent Cooper, “I am dead… yet. I. live.” Then the screaming.

The beings of the Black Lodge speak backwards, and both Laura and (eventually) Cooper are stuck sitting in an armchair for all eternity. A doppleganger is spat out, and, in Twin Peaks: The Return, Coop’s evil, seemingly unkillable counterpart takes the place of BOB. The show is concerned with not just the existence, but the personification of evil. Unspeakable, unbelievable things, and the denial that comes along with them.

I’ve watched Twin Peaks all the way through at least six or seven times, and that includes six or seven viewings of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which is without a doubt the most difficult watch in the entire series. At 32, I tend to skip any movie or TV show that contains an SA scene or makes it part of the main plot. Where horror was once a comfort, I am now getting way, way too soft for anything even a little realistic. What makes Twin Peaks different, then? This is where some people get mad, and while that anger is understandable… it doesn’t make it any less true:

Twin Peaks is funny.

Twin Peaks contains elements of absurdist comedy, and pushes that to the absolute nth degree in The Return. That being said, Lynch might just be the only person who has ever successfully paired SA and domestic violence with absurdist comedy… and this is what makes this dark and strange world so comforting to me. It’s similar to how we use self-deprecating humor when talking about our own mental illnesses, why we refer to a panic attack as a “menty b,” or why I refer to myself as a BPD Baddie and a Post Traumatic Princess. Without humor, it’s all dark. And I can’t live in darkness.

When you present darkness inside of darkness, it’s hard for the average person to access. When you present darkness cloaked in a kind of strange light, the viewer doesn’t have to take it all in at first.

It’s worth noting that, before Fire Walk with Me was released in theaters, no one knew the scope of Laura’s abuse, both at the hands of her father and the other men in her life (and I kindly ask you to please stop defending Bobby in front of me). “Who killed Laura Palmer?” was a hot question, and everyone had their own theories. I initially thought it was Bobby, aka The Boyfriend, or James, aka The Other Boyfriend, because that’s my reality. Then my suspicions fell on Leo. Then, in the season 2 episode ‘Lonely Souls,’ Leland kills his own niece (also played by Lee)… and even before we see him look in the mirror, only for BOB to be reflected back at him, I knew.

I’ve had a few people tell me that the show stopped being funny for them after this, and I think the producers and the studios knew this as well, which is why the show turned into a strange daytime soap opera after Lynch gave up day-to-day creative control. When I’m talking about absurdist comedy… I promise I’m not talking about Ben Horne’s Civil War thing or the terribly problematic Catherine Martell - Mr. Tojamura thing. Truthfully, the season should’ve ended with Laura’s murder being solved and then the finale, which sees Cooper become the personification of evil himself… and this is after he expresses his disbelief in what happened to Laura, or at least that it’s something that happens more commonly than one might think.

Fast forward 25 years and The Return (the revival season) is laugh-out-loud funny, but also turns up those cosmic ramifications to a 12. It also doesn’t answer any of our questions, and I like it that way. We don’t need to know what the Black Lodge actually is, or why doppelgangers exist, or even why Laura Palmer’s doppelganger Carrie Page screams in the final scene of the entire series. There is no way to intellectualize evil. There is no way to understand it, and there’s no need to either. It just happens. It just exists.

And if that’s the takeaway from the entire series… I can see how that might suck. But it’s real and honest and true. The reality for victims of SA and DV is that they are stuck screaming in the Black Lodge, either dead without justice, or trapped in an endless loop of their own trauma. And if Gordon Cole didn’t shout while delivering classified information, Cooper didn’t deliver those notes to Diane, Jade didn’t give two rides, Sinclair didn’t have a cartoonish breakdown after trying to poison Dougie Jones, and that whole thing with the llama in season 1, episode 5… it would be the saddest, bleakest show of all time. Especially for real-life SA and DV survivors.

The character of Laura Palmer does offer some hope, believe it or not. No one rallied behind me to put any of my abusers behind bars, to find some kind of justice, even though it was a little too late for that. Someone cared enough to unravel the mystery of Laura’s life and solve the case. And that might be the bleakest thing of all, that it wasn’t until after her death that someone truly gave a fuck… but it’s enough for me.

My hope is that expression of this pain becomes a great river of healing waters with the connecting energy of beautiful streams, branching creaks and winding tributaries reaching out to quench the thirst of those still in need.

— Sheryl Lee, Laura’s Ghost

Absurdity is what I like most in life, and there's humor in struggling in ignorance. If you saw a man repeatedly running into a wall until he was a bloody pulp, after a while it would make you laugh because it becomes absurd. But I don't just find humor in unhappiness — I find it extremely heroic the way people forge on despite the despair they often feel.

— David Lynch