He woke up in the middle of the night rattled by a nightmare consisting of an authoritarian father-figure, a crocodile and a violent street gang all out to get him. Even after he woke up the emotional impact was so strong that he didn't know how to get out of his now waking dream.

Most people are controlled by their unconscious thoughts, feelings, movements. Because many of those are habits and routines this only becomes obvious in either crisis situations or more likely during any kind of cultivation practice like still meditation. An exhausting crisis makes you give up for some breathing space while the voluntary sitting in stillness makes thoughts obvious that we otherwise carry around and react to on a daily basis.

Most of these thought patterns appear in dreams or are imaginations and projections of a frightening, limiting, needy or wishful nature. They are very persistent since they were often established in childhood as protection strategies but are outdated now. Thus they are just in the way and use up energy and focus.

Becoming increasingly aware of and maybe annoyed by them may inspire the question for a quick release, something one could apply at any moment.

Why not simply explode them? Let's call it the 'Toosh!' technique.

Here is the deal:
Any time some useless recurring thought pattern or feeling appears, without hesitation just explode it in your mind:

'Toosh!'

The point is to not give those patterns any room to unfold or react to them - as it often happens by internally 'defending and explaining' endlessly the cases of your childhood and the causes of the world via a memory loop - to yourself since nobody else is around! Or you may react to the 'threatening' appearance of a crocodile, snake, gang, vertigo or whatever your mind imagines to be a threat. And you need to run, run . . . fight, fight . . .bla bla bla.

Just 'Toosh!' it!  Connect it to an image of explosion. Render it useless and unimportant immediately.

That's all. Pay attention and do it.