A mallet softens what is tough by force, so it is read as pressure — given or received — to make someone yield. Tradition also sees it as working hard to make a difficult matter manageable.
Does the traditional reading fit your dream, or did it mean something else to you?
My Cosmic Code has a private dream journal. Write a dream down and the app picks out the symbols in it, shows what dream books say about them and, over time, which words recur across your entries. The journal is stored on your device only.