Let's say you are an anxious dental patient.

Maybe you just don't feel comfortable with a whirring drill boring into a tooth, no matter how much numbing drug is administered. What to do?

Well, you could try a visualization exercise. You know, picture something that would take your mind off the possibility that, at any moment, your appointment could turn into a scene from 1976's "Marathon Man." You know which one I'm talking about.

But what to imagine? What would reliably distract you? To each his own. But here are a few possibilities to consider.

1.That flashback scene near the beginning of "Twelve O'clock High," where the B-17 engines cough, sputter and then roar to life.

2. Imagine being a giant and leaning down to gently caress Palouse wheat fields.

3. Wondering what Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson might have said at the end of "Lost in Translation."

4. See yourself as Robert Smith, hair and all, in that video of "Just Like Heaven."

5. Try to decide what would be the perfect spot for a true skyscraper in Spokane.

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