The surprise attack

 In the dream, a 1,200-pound Brahma cow fixes me with a stare. I know what’s coming and start running, although I know it’s useless.

She hops a fence like a deer and comes after me with long black horns. I don’t die. I’m not trampled. I am hooked, though, and if a couple of ribs aren’t broken they are pretending to be.

Some people have dreams of their working days or student days. I’m surprised that I still have dreams of cow-working days.

But the cow of my dreams was once a real cow. Her markings, her coloring, her horns were perfect. And those eyes. When I woke up, I felt my left side, just to make sure.

Best guess at what’s going on: I’ve been reading Susan M. Tiberghien’s book on writing. She’s studied enough psychology to teach at C.G. Jung Centers and she urges writers to tap into their dreams. It’s pretty conventional advice, but I’ve been resistant. Tiberghien says Martin Luther prayed that he would have no memory of his dreams. I come from a line of folks who would have recited Luther’s prayer had they known about it.

I’m reading Tiberghien because I finished a long essay and have started a short story, more piddling than writing at this point. But I’m guessing the cow came out of that pasture.

• Susan M. Tiberghien, One Year to a Writing Life; Cambridge, Mass.: De Capo Press, 2007.