So you’re trying out virtual reality for the first time. The headset’s on, and you feel faintly ridiculous. Then you open your eyes to find yourself looking not at a computer-generated world, but at what appears to be the same room as the one you’re currently sat in. You stand up, and look down to see that the only thing that’s changed is your own body. You’re now a member of the opposite sex.

The Be Another Lab is using virtual reality to help people see what life is like through someone else’s eyes. It does this by equipping Oculus Rift headsets with first-person cameras and then feeding the live footage from one headset to another. As a result, the wearers see everything from each other’s perspective. One of the experiments conducted by the Lab is the gender-swapping experiment, in which a boy and a girl in separate, identical rooms strip to their underwear and have a good look at each other’s bodies.

Nothing to worry about, then.

So far it may just sound like the perfect chance to creep on someone in the name of science. But there’s more to it than that. It’s thought that the experiment could actually help to make people more empathetic. Once the participants have synchronised their movements, they begin to feel as if they’re inhabiting the other’s body. The Be Another Lab is also a firm believer in the power of combining body-swapping with story-telling, and conducts similar experiments where one participant narrates their experience of the world to the other. The user will see what the story-teller is seeing whilst interacting with objects meaningful to them and listening to a pre-recorded narrative of their life story. Afterwards there is a chance for the two participants to meet in person and discuss the experience. It’s no secret that to bring two people from very different backgrounds together, you should get them talking, get them sharing experiences. But using this technology is a way of really making an impact and unlocking a genuine emotional engagement with someone else; a way to literally see the world from their point of view.

Because of this, the technology could make us more understanding and tolerant of other people. Studies conducted by the University of Barcelona and Royal Holloway University have found that it may actually decrease implicit racism. Volunteers who occupied the virtual body of someone with a different skin colour were shown to have a reduced racial bias after the experiment. Whether this experiment could increase empathy in the long-term is uncertain. But the experiment is clearly an eye-opener, and several medical uses for the technology have been suggested, such as using it to help those suffering from anorexia.

It’s reassuring to see that virtual reality has some altruistic uses, at a time when many people are raising concerns about the technology. There’s a general fear that virtual reality is about to enslave young people with an entertainment system more immersive than any before. The Be Another experiment is evidence that, in fact, virtual reality has some really fascinating experiences to offer us.

Keep in mind, though, that one thing virtual reality is still trying to overcome is the barfogenic zone. That’s geek for motion sickness. Use it to your heart’s delight. As it turns out, opening your eyes and suddenly finding yourself in an entirely unfamiliar world can be a bit disorientating. Your brain can struggle to catch up with the images bombarding you, and react to it by having you perform an exorcism of the stomach. So if you’re prone to motion sickness, virtual reality might not be for you. Or at least have a bucket nearby.