A pound of flesh is apparently not enough. Dustin stalks his way around the edge of the cavern with increasing levels of agitation, inspecting the glowing constellations, running his hands along suspicious-looking divots in the rock in case they might reveal a hidden passage - nothing.

It's only in those moments that he twists around in frustration after yet another failed attempt at finding a clue that he sees the flickers of yet another space. Or rather, two spaces. One of them is the now familiar cottage, and while an obstinate, self-indulgent part of Dustin wants to focus on it and just quietly eat that delicious-smelling dinner until he wakes up, a larger part of him feels like that would be admitting defeat somehow. He is a sucker for forward progress, which is what finding an unexplored region of the dream seems like to him.

That's why, in spite of its apparent blandness, Dustin ends up narrowing in on the flashes of stark white that pop into the edge of his vision.