This paper considers the experience of embodiment in current and (possible) future virtual reality (VR) applications. A phenomenological perspective is adopted to explore user embodiment in both those VR applications which do and do not include a visual body (re)presentation (virtual body). Embodiment is viewed from the perspective of sensorial immersion where issues of gender, race and culture are all implicated. Accounts of ‘disrupted’ bodies (for example phantom limb and dissociation of the ‘self’ from the body, paralysis and objectified bodies) are advanced in order to provide a context for understanding the ways in which embodiment in virtual reality environments may be instantiated. The explicit claim that VR is an embodied experience and can facilitate the radical transfiguration of the body and its sensorial architecture are explored and evaluated.