This study explores the first-person experience of body transfer in virtual reality (VR). Mel Slater and colleagues demonstrate that a life-sized virtual female body, perceived as substituting a male participant's own body, can induce a body transfer illusion. Participants experienced this illusion subjectively through questionnaires and physiologically through heart rate deceleration in response to a threat to the virtual body. The findings challenge previous assumptions that visuotactile synchrony is the critical factor in ownership illusions. Instead, the study shows that first-person perspective (1PP) is a dominant factor in generating the illusion. The research highlights the power of immersive VR in studying body representation and experience, as it allows for experimental manipulations that would otherwise be infeasible. The study also reveals that bottom-up perceptual mechanisms can temporarily override top-down knowledge, leading to a radical illusion of body ownership. The results suggest that immersive VR is a valuable tool for understanding self-consciousness and body representation, as it enables the simulation of complex scenarios that are difficult to achieve in real life. The study's findings have implications for understanding the neural mechanisms underlying body ownership and self-awareness.This study explores the first-person experience of body transfer in virtual reality (VR). Mel Slater and colleagues demonstrate that a life-sized virtual female body, perceived as substituting a male participant's own body, can induce a body transfer illusion. Participants experienced this illusion subjectively through questionnaires and physiologically through heart rate deceleration in response to a threat to the virtual body. The findings challenge previous assumptions that visuotactile synchrony is the critical factor in ownership illusions. Instead, the study shows that first-person perspective (1PP) is a dominant factor in generating the illusion. The research highlights the power of immersive VR in studying body representation and experience, as it allows for experimental manipulations that would otherwise be infeasible. The study also reveals that bottom-up perceptual mechanisms can temporarily override top-down knowledge, leading to a radical illusion of body ownership. The results suggest that immersive VR is a valuable tool for understanding self-consciousness and body representation, as it enables the simulation of complex scenarios that are difficult to achieve in real life. The study's findings have implications for understanding the neural mechanisms underlying body ownership and self-awareness.