I’ve never thought of it that way before!
What a good idea!
That makes sense!
Those are the kind of thoughts you might find yourself thinking in the middle of the night when a great idea strikes as you lie in darkness.
I’ll have to write it down in the morning and work on it then.
That thought is enough to mollify your creative excitement. You go back to sleep—all to find you’ve forgotten your Earth-shattering idea by the time morning comes.
A light-up pen is basic equipment for a creative person
Yet not every creative person has one.
You might not need to have a journal by your bedside. A piece of scratch paper will often do, or maybe a single index card.
The journal is nice to have. But we’re not talking about wish lists. Journals are good for organization and sometimes save you from having to rewrite.
Plenty of pens without lights write with clear lines. To use them well you need light and it’s hard to write clearly in the dark.
You could turn on the light, of course. It’ll let you see, though it will blast your eyes and get you fully awake. Your pupils have widened in the darkness. Even bedside lights that seem softly radiant just before sleep are bright and disruptive. If you sleep with someone else, you don’t want to wake them up. It isn’t fair to them and could strain your relationship.
Those middle-of-the-night ideas are valuable for so many things: inventions, songs, stories, things you should remember to do, and insights as to how to handle certain situations. It’s not altogether different from panning for gold. Our lives and our days hold a lot of dirt and detritus. We sift through it all before we drift off to sleep and sometimes find nuggets of gold among those thoughts.
Thomas Edison said, “Success is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”
That’s true—but what a valuable 1 percent!
If you don’t have a pan (a pen and paper), those nuggets of gold go right back into the river, washing away.
A light-up pen is that pan.
In 1849 would-be prospectors scrambled across the land mass that would become the United States to get to the gold fields of California. They did the same thing when gold was discovered in Alaska and in the Yukon. It was so much easier to get in on the treasure when they had at least some of the tools. There was no time to waste.
Simply put, light-up pens help you reach your potential and there’s no time to waste in trying to get there.
More uses for light-up pens
You’ll want at least two light-up pens, more if you tend to misplace your pens. One should go by your bedside. Hide it somewhere convenient if you’re worried that it might go missing. The other one, keep in a pocket. Over time, you’ll find innumerable uses.
The dark and the shock to your eyes won’t be any deterrent to recording your brilliant idea. Light-up pens are made for writing in the dark.
Some electric car charging cables have lights on the end of them if you need to connect them to the charger in darkness. Some cars have a lighted port. Not all do. If light is missing somewhere, the lighted pen comes in handy.
Sometimes you’ll need to find a keyhole in darkness. You’ll be able to feel for the correct key. It’ll slip into the keyhole sooner or later after you fumble around a bit. Yet, if you had a light-up pen handy, you could find it much faster.
There are also times when you’ve got to connect electronic equipment where it’s dim.
Light-up pens are also good for searching through the dark recesses of a pen or backpack.
You just don’t know that you need a light-up pen until you do.
And when you get it, keep it handy.
For further reading:
Can certain sleep habits make you more creative?
A new theory linking sleep and creativity.
Want to be creative? Keep an idea notebook handy.
How a piece of tape can help you remember your dreams.
Besides dreams, what else should you write in a dream journal?
James Cobb, RN, MSN, is an emergency department nurse and the founder of the Dream Recovery System. He aims to provide his readers with simple, actionable ways to improve their health and maximize their quality of life.
We use affiliate links. If you click on a link and make a purchase, we may receive a commission. This arrangement has no effect on our opinions.