Personal Dream Symbols as Lucid Triggers?

I've been curious as to how to Incorporate personal dream symbols and use them as triggers. I often have water in my dreams in all sorts of ways, can I use this to make me question if I'm dreaming while asleep? How would I go about doing this? My first thought was to think about asking myself if I'm awake every time I'm doing something related to water... washing my hands, taking a bath, etc. For a while when I was in high school, I was constantly having what I called Ocean tidal wave Dreams. I was getting them so frequently that on occasion when I was dreaming I realized by familiarity that I was sleeping, and that helped me get into a lucid state. Any thoughts or helpful hints?

Repetition helps. So if tidal waves are your dreamsign, whenever you see pictures of them or on TV..do an RC.

IMJ