almost lucid

I had a dream a few nights ago, and I was almost lucid.
Dream:

i was swimming with my friend nathan around the ocean of an island. we were swimming to the middle of the area we were in, and i said, "oh, i've been here before nathan! i was here with my aunt, looking for starfish" and in reality, kind of HAD been there, in another dream. that wasn't the whole dream, just the important part. when i said i'd been there before, i remembered that it was a dream when i was there. so i remembered my dream in a dream. pretty close to lucidity, don't you think?
does anyone have a tip on how i could find out i'm in a dream besides reality checks? :P

Reality checking is the only way I've found to convince myself I'm dreaming when I'm only suspicious. Some people intuitively know they are dreaming. I think this comes with talent or maybe a little with experience (as I've gone intuitively lucid more and more frequently lately).

hey thanks. i still haven't gotten any closer to it :x but i'm hoping now since i have a lot of normal stuff going on in my life, and my dreams are always nuts like woah, maybe i'll be dreaming and realize it...

*hopes for lucidity*

That sucks man, it has happenned to me a few times as well. Like I'll realize that I'm dreaming, and then I just go about what I was doing like nothing happenned.