It has all the elements of a nightmare. A masked person stands over you wielding a small mirror in one gloved hand and a needle-sharp probe in the other. A drill powerful enough to cut through bone in seconds sits idle on a table beside other implements of torture. You cannot see the masked face clearly because of dazzling lights above you, but your tormentor draws closer, eyes encased in goggles like a creature from outer space.
No, it's not Leatherface from "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," just a regular visit to the dentist. But for many people that makes it worse. A visit to the dentist is, at best, one of life's necessary evils, and it can be a painful experience, so much so that the unhappy memories lead people to stay away until the ache in a tooth becomes worse than the memory of what the last dentist did.
"It is a tragedy that people think this way," says Mikako Hayashi, assistant professor at Osaka University's Graduate School -- a tragedy both for their teeth and their general health. "Treat the dentist as your friend, not your worst enemy," she pleads.