Following a Script to Escape a Nightmare

ALBUQUERQUE — Her car is racing at a terrifying speed through the streets of a large city, and something gruesome, something with giant eyeballs, is chasing her, closing in fast.

It was a dream, of course, and after Emily Gurule, a 50-year-old high school teacher, related it to Dr. Barry Krakow, he did not ask her to unpack its symbolism. He simply told her to think of a new one.

“In your mind, with thinking and picturing, take a few minutes, close your eyes, and I want you to change the dream any way you wish,” said Dr. Krakow, founder of the P.T.S.D. Sleep Clinic at the Maimonides Sleep Arts and Sciences center here and a leading researcher of nightmares.

And so the black car became a white Cadillac, traveling at a gentle speed with nothing chasing it. The eyeballs became bubbles, floating serenely above the city.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/health/27night.html?th&emc=th

Many, many years ago. I was having a bizzare and horrific sci-fi nightmare of some sort. I was also taking an English literature course at the time and we were memorizing the opening passages of Canterbury Tales. So in my nightmare I just started reciting these lines from Chaucer and it immediately transformed from scenes of horror to idyllic pastoral imagery. It was really kind of cool. :)