I wonder too. If the forest was just making the idea of 'familiar'. And letting us fill in, make up the rest.

[ Emmet did consider that, when he couldn't pinpoint a specific forest— but to a degree many forests can look pretty similar if you're deep enough in them. Hard to say when it's just the two of them. If there was a third, from somewhere else entirely, and they also thought it was familiar... well!

(Well, at least he doesn't have to try to guess at what Ingo was experiencing to explain it at the debrief.) ]

... if you thought it was familiar too, then it probably wasn't Ilex.