I don't see the problem with tricking yourself...as there are infinite levels of being tricked associated with the infinite levels of potential lucidity. If you penetrate through one level of trickery, you are going to reach the next level of lucidity.
The first level of lucidity...you realize you are dreaming. The second level of lucidity...no this is real. The next level of lucidity is to realize that both waking life and dream-life are a dream.

If in your waking life you stop and penetrate the moment with the question "Is this real?" You will find that you were probably engaged in some day dream or another and not really awake to the moment. And that there is infinite levels of increased sensory and cognitive awareness that you could bring to the moment. You might find that what your dreamlife is trying to do is make you more lucid in your waking dream. This is the huge step from being a passive observer of ones experience, to actively generating ones reality through directorial skills which requires liberated and applied imagination. You appear to be playing with the machinery of consciousness in prior to actually getting the skill to take the next step. It may be a dreamtime version of the self-reflexive awareness of actually being alive as an "I." "Wow, I am alive...But in this case it is "Wow this is real." As an experiment you might try and remember a couple of times a day, "Wow, I am alive!" This might help you move on from being stuck at "This is real!"