STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Shaking hands with yourself is an amusing out-of-body experience. The illusion of having your stomach slashed with a kitchen knife, not so much.

Both sensations, however, felt real to most participants in a Swedish science project exploring how people can be tricked into the false perception of owning another body.

In a study presented Tuesday, neuroscientists at Stockholm's renowned Karolinska Institute show how they got volunteers wearing virtual reality goggles to experience the illusion of swapping bodies with a mannequin and a real person.

"We were interested in a classical question that philosophers and psychologists have discussed for centuries: why we feel that the self is in our bodies,'' project leader Henrik Ehrsson said.

It sounded intriguing enough for me to try it, though entering the laboratory on Monday. Ehrsson's colleague, Valeria Petkova, rubbed my left hand with electrolytic gel and attached electrodes to the middle and index fingers.

The first props I saw were two kitchen knives, three naked dummies and a prosthetic hand sticking out from behind a curtain. At that point, it didn't feel very real. But when Petkova simultaneously brushed markers against my belly and that of the mannequin, I had a growing impression that the mannequin's body was my own.

The results were published in PLoS One, the online journal of the Public Library of Science.

The main finding was that under certain conditions a person can perceive another body as his or her own.

Ehrsson suggested the findings could be applied in research on body image disorders by exploring how people become satisfied or dissatisfied with their bodies.

Another possible application could be developing more advanced versions of computer games such as Second Life, he said.

"It could lead to the next generation of virtual reality applications in games, where people have the full-blown experience of being the avatar,'' Ehrsson said.