Should I keep my pencil for travel notes as a pen always explodes during travel?

no. use your imagination more lying down. Use awareness NOT mind. discarding writing instruments is key.

Mind is matter, subject to time and space, like any object. But awareness is not matter; it is free from the clutches of time and space. So, when the mind links with pure awareness, it is liberated and attains freedom to move wherever it likes, without the restrictions of time, space and object.

Swami Satyasangananda Saraswati, Sri Saundarya Lahari