If you could be anybody in the world, who would it be? This is usually just a theoretical question. The idea of suddenly taking the form of your neighbour, a celebrity or even your dog is fun to think about, but seemingly impossible to execute.

Yet a few people have experienced what it might be like to step into the skin of another person, thanks to an unusual virtual reality device. “The first seconds are just overwhelming,” says Rikke Frances Wahl, a woman 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, an actress, model and artist, was one of the participants in a body swapping experiment at the Be Another lab, a project developed by a group of artists based in Barcelona. She acquired her new body using a machine called The Machine to be Another.

The set-up is relatively simple. Both users 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. “It was so natural,” Wahl says, laughing, “and at the same time it was so unnatural.”