Electric prunes are just large electric currants. 
Groan! 
I don’t actually know, but I always kind of assumed that was the actual rationale for the band name. I can’t think why else they might have chosen it.
Thanks for that reply – you nailed it. When the fear of sleep or not being able to sleep starts to interfere with the sleep itself, is when I have to just take a step back and say, Whoa! You’'ll BE OKAY.
What is so puzzling is that I usually have no obligations the next day. None. If I wanted to wake up now, at 3:30 a.m., and have a cup of coffee, go on the Internet, write a few emails blah blah blah, there are no bosses tomorrow who will call anxiously at 9:30 and say “Nick, why aren’t you here?”
In fact, no one will call at all. Maybe the postman. So what I can’t figure out is why I get anxious about it anyway – almost as if, well, 99% of the world are going to be up and about at 8 a.m. their time, whether they’re panning through giant landfills in Bangladesh or checking in at Lehman Bros. for their high=powered day of trading and schmoozing . . . yet here lay I, jobless, don’t have to go anywhere or do anything, the world will go on perfectly well without me . . . it just all seems somehow WRONG.
Oh, and the part about my wife keeping me awake – she doesn’t take offense when I tell her “I just had to go into the next room to sleep when you came to be last night because I knew you were in snore-mode.” It doesn’t bother her at all. So that’s covered too.
I think I might need a shrink.
You should go to bed when you feel tired. You have a different circadian rhythm than most people and you’re getting poor sleep because you aren’t listening to what your body is telling you at 8:30, which is “go to bed.” You’re fortunate because you don’t have obligations so you can listen to your body - you’re choosing not to.
Your body will regulate your sleep cycle if you let it. If you don’t let it, you’ll continue to have poor sleep, almost certainly.
You should see an MD who is board-certified in sleep medicine.
IANAMD (but my SO is a psychiatrist who is board-certified in sleep medicine; circadian rhythms and listening to your body is the absolute most basic thing I’ve learned from her about sleep.)
I would agree that working with someone who can help you find ways of getting around that attitude about sleep would probably make a big difference. Maybe start with a good cognitive-behavioral therapist.