Been lucid dreaming more frequently lately, maybe once every couple weeks with occasional periods of doing it every couple days. Interestingly, there's a consistent landscape to the dream, at least when I WILD. When I just randomly become lucid in a dream then I'm wherever the dream decided to put me, but even then there's certain consistent features, which I want to explore more.
When I WILD/Out-of-Body, I'm always ripped out of bed into a sort of between-space. It's completely empty, surrounded on all sides by a pinkish twilight sky, it looks a lot like when you fall through the level geometry in a videogame and it's just skybox all around. It's full of howling wind, that picks me up and throws me around. I usually keep my eyes closed through here though, to avoid accidentally opening my real eyes before I'm fully in the dream. Eventually I'm dropped back into bed, now in a dream. My house is always identical to my real house.
Outside is a giant maze of suburbs. Weirdly, while it doesn't match the real suburbs outside my house, it's always the same in the dream. When I've jumped up into the air to see farther, the suburbs go for miles in every direction, but there's a few discontinuities, like an area full of McMansions with swimming pools, and the periphery breaks down into a dismal rural area full of dilapidated farmhouses and long roads, more like where I grew up. I've explored this area the most, and gone into several houses. There are almost never any people in them, but there are occasionally people outside.
More interesting are the sub-levels, which are where I really want to explore, they feel like gateways, to a deeper level of the dream or to something else, and seem to be testing my will to pass through them.
There's the sawmill, which is sort of behind the dream landscape. I can't walk or fly there, but if I draw a door on a wall and push it open, the sawmill will be on the other side. It's got concrete walls and dirt floor, as well as particle-board partitions dividing it up into a sort of maze. It's full of dead, mutilated bodies. When I first saw it, I instinctively thought of it as a sawmill, even though it doesn't really resemble one. There's something in there, patrolling or guarding it, some kind of monster. I haven't seen it, but I could feel it, and the trick about dreams is that if you feel something in your gut, it's automatically true. If I want to see what's on the other side of the sawmill I'll have to get past the guardian (you see what I mean about a test?)
The other sub-level is below the dream, underneath the floor. If I find a tile floor, I can pull it away in sections, and underneath is a blackish red liquid. It's warm to the touch and very deep. I've stuck my arm in it but I haven't had the balls to dive in yet. There are stone structures floating in the depths, but I haven't been able to explore them and I don't know what they are. This is another one where if I want to see where it leads, I'll have to swallow the fear and dive into an unknown, dangerous place.
One of these days I'm gonna do it. It's not like I'm in any real danger, but fear is a really powerful thing in dreams. The dream is your own thoughts, so it conforms to your expectations. If you let yourself get scared, the dream will give you a reason to be scared.