Agreeing with everyone regarding the overuse of clouds, but here's a simple idea to mitigate that: incorporate those progressively larger bubbles that would app

Agreeing with everyone regarding the overuse of clouds, but here's a simple idea to mitigate that: incorporate those progressively larger bubbles that would appear beneath a "thought cloud" in a comic or illustration. That way there would be no question where it was representing "a cloud" which carries all of the connotations of "the cloud", or more specifically "a thought/idea/dream cloud".