What Does Dreaming About a Pen Mean?

Psychologically, the pen is the instrument of writing and expression — so it most often touches writing, expression, and recording: putting thoughts into words, communicating, creating, and making something permanent or 'on the record.' The pen gives form to thought and voice to what's within, and so it often mirrors your self-expression, your communication, and your power to record, create, and author.

This carries several charges. As expression and voice, the pen touches your self-expression — putting your thoughts and feelings into words, finding and using your voice. As writing and recording, the pen makes things permanent and 'on the record' — touching what you record, document, or make lasting. As authorship and creation, the pen authors and creates — touching your power to author your own story and create something of your own ('the pen is mightier than the sword'). As commitment and signing, a pen used to sign touches a commitment, an agreement, or 'putting your name to' something. As blocked expression, a pen out of ink or that won't write touches feeling unable to express yourself, a block in your communication or creativity. Whether you're writing freely, signing, running out of ink, or holding the pen usually mirrors expression and voice, writing and recording, authorship and creation, commitment and signing, and a block in expressing yourself.

A Freudian reading would attend to the pen as the instrument of writing and inscription — bound up with expression and the making of one's mark, the recording and creating of what is within, and the authoring and 'signing' of the self. The pen can embody the expression and inscription of what is within, the making of one's mark, and the creative authoring of the self.

Its writing or its running dry carries the charge of expression and of creation. What the pen evokes — the free flow of writing, the block of the dry pen, the commitment of the signature — tends to point at the dreamer's relationship to expression and creation: the giving of form to what is within, the making of one's mark, and the flow or the block of the creative and expressive self.

Scripture honors the pen and the written word — 'my tongue is the pen of a ready writer,' the things 'written... for our learning,' and the law written 'in their hearts' (the deeper writing of the inner self). The pen, as the instrument of writing, touches these themes of the word recorded, the giving of form to what is within, and the writing upon the heart.

A pen dream, read this way, can touch expression, the recording of words, commitment, or authoring. A biblical sensibility might weigh the pen through 'the pen of a ready writer' and the word that is written and endures, reading the dream as a prompt to use one's words and expression well — to write and speak what is true and good — and to attend to the deeper 'writing on the heart,' that what one records and commits to, and the mark one makes, be worthy and lasting.

In Islamic sensibility the pen (al-Qalam) carries a profound honor — the very first thing God created and commanded to write ('the Pen'), the instrument of knowledge and the recording of all things ('He taught by the pen'), and an emblem of knowledge, the written word, and the recording of deeds. The pen evokes knowledge, the written word, and the recording of all things.

A pen dream, in this frame, might point to expression and the written word, recording and commitment, knowledge, or authoring. Held with humility, the pen can recall the honor the tradition gives it — the Pen by which God 'taught,' the instrument of knowledge and of the recording of every deed — reading the dream as an invitation to honor knowledge and the written word, to use one's pen and expression toward the good and true, and to a mindfulness that one's deeds, too, are recorded, as by a pen that does not forget.

In a Hindu frame the pen touches knowledge, learning, and expression, and the recording and creating of the written word — bound up with Saraswati (the goddess of knowledge, learning, speech, and the arts), the honoring of learning and the word, and the recording of one's deeds and story. The pen evokes knowledge and learning, expression and the word, and the recording of things.

A pen dream, in this frame, can point to expression and voice, writing and recording, knowledge, or authoring. The tradition's note attends to knowledge and the word: the pen as an instrument of learning, knowledge, and expression (under Saraswati's grace, the goddess of learning and the arts) and of the recording and authoring of one's story — an invitation to honor learning and right expression, to use one's words and pen toward the true and good, and to author one's life with awareness and care.