A group of artists based in Barcelona has created an unusual virtual reality device that can allow you to experience what it might be like to step into the skin of another person.
The device, called The Machine to be Another, lets people experience life in another person's body.
Participants in a body swapping experiment at the Be Another lab don an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset with a camera rigged to the top of it.
The video from each camera is piped to the other person, so what you see is the exact view of your partner. If she moves her arm, you see it. If you move your arm, she sees it.
To get used to seeing another person's body without actually having control of it, participants start by moving their arms and legs very slowly, so that the other can follow along.
Eventually, this kind of slow, synchronised movement becomes comfortable, and participants really start to feel as though they are living in another person's body, 'BBC News' reported.
"The first seconds are just overwhelming," said Rikke Frances Wahl, one of the female participants who temporarily became a man.
"It feels weird. You start to feel more and more comfortable in it, and you start to really get the fantasy of how it would be if it were your body," Wahl said.
Using such technology promises to alter people's behaviour afterwards - potentially for the better, researchers said.
"At the end of body swapping, people feel like hugging each other. It's a really nice way to have this kind of experience, and to force empathy onto a person's brain," said Arthur Pointeau, a programmer with the project.
Aside from empathy, the Be Another lab has used the technology in other situations in which swapping places might have a positive effect.
They have allowed therapists to switch with their patients, to better understand being physically disabled, and had wheelchair users swap with dancers.
