Living with hyperphantasia: ‘I remember the clothes people wore the day we met, the things they said word-for-word’

‘I’ve learned not everybody can replay scenes – real or imagined – in such vivid detail,’ writes Maddie Thomas. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

I close my eyes and picture a boat making its way towards the mainland. Lit only by moonlight, a silhouette walks towards a post box and mails three letters, one by one. Then, the familiar tune of ABBA’s Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) starts to play, and the musical begins.

Sometimes as a child I had trouble falling asleep. But from age 11 and through my early teenage years, recreating the film Mamma Mia! in my head frame-by-frame was my remedy. Running each line of dialogue through my mind and bringing to life the colour of the characters’ clothes, usually by the time they arrive flustered from their journey, I would drift off.