"Freaky Friday" Flip

"I wish I could switch places with her, for just one day..."

Body Switch Movie:
The brain of one character somehow finds itself in the body of another. Requires actors to confront an actor's nightmare, i.e., acting as if they were another actor.

— Ebert's Glossary of Movie Terms

The most benign subtrope of Body Snatcher: two or more characters swap bodies (or, equally, swap minds) by some form of magic or Applied Phlebotinum. Typically, a deeper appreciation of the other's life is attained. Named for a novel and movie about a body swap between a mother and her daughter.

To be really convincing, the actors may have to mimic the body language and speech patterns of the actor they are supposed to have switched with - e.g. an older person using very modern language and slouching. This is doubly complicated if they are trying to imperfectly pretend they are the other person.

When this plot is done in animation, usually the voices also switch as a narrative cheat to help younger viewers keep track of who's who. More subtly, it's just the eyes. More serious/action-oriented cartoons might not do this, however. The Flip often involves characters of different ages, genders^note, races, or social classes. Another variation is a protagonist and antagonist switching, which usually involves each trying to undermine the other's organization while simultaneously trying to switch back. Alternatively it may lead to a Heel–Face Turn. If one or both of the characters have superpowers or other special abilities, they'll have a lot of trouble figuring out their new powers. And if the characters have sufficiently different physiques, expect a lot of Stumbling in the New Form.

A similar idea, with less learning and more evil, is Grand Theft Me. Compare Personality Swap, when the characters' personalities are swapped but their minds stay where they are meant to be, and Transferred Transformation. Contrast with Physical Attribute Swap, when two characters exchange specific physical traits like height, weight, or age without switching bodies entirely. Mental Time Travel might be a temporal variation of this. It will often involve similar tropes to transformation stories (such as Gender Bender) as this is essentially two of these in one, with the addition of confusion resulting from the transformations being into other known characters.^note

Nearly an Obligatory Joke in a Speculative Fiction series (as in, bound to happen sooner or later in the series, if it's popular enough).

In the original trope-naming film, the reason of the switch is never explained in-universe (in the book, the mother made it happen, although she refuses to explain how). However, the Doylist reason for any application is often to force the age-old moral: To better understand others, you must experience life in their shoes.

This is such a prominent trope that The Other Wiki has an entire list article dedicated to covering notable instances of body swapping in media.

Example subpages:

Other examples:

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Advertising

A T-Mobile advert from 2003 shows a woman getting a video message from her husband. The video shows her young daughter activating her science project; a brain switcher, which swaps her older brother's body with the family dog. The dog speaks with the son's voice while the boy lifts his leg to scratch behind his ear. Cue mom fainting. A very brief scene after this shows the dad playing fetch with the dog in the boy's body.
A series of Japanese Intel commercials focus on several swaps that are interconnected with each other and shows how each of the individuals basically wake up in their new bodies. The first details a swap between a young boy who wakes up as a female ballet dancer, who turns up to her class as a black man, who then wakes up in the body of the aforementioned boy. The second is a straightforward swap between a samurai and a French ballerina.
From the 2016 European Championship, Nike's "The Switch" deals with this happening between Christiano Ronaldo and an English boy.

Asian Animation

Bread Barbershop: In keeping with the show's tradition of making different food puns, the production team named an episode "Freaky Fry-day" and had it be about Wilk wishing to be as good at being a barber as Master Bread. He gets his wish - he switches bodies with Master Bread after an accident, at which point everyone starts to appreciate Wilk's more avant-garde hairstyles up to a point, thinking they're Bread's hairstyles.
Happy Friends: In Season 4 episode 18, Happy S. and Lady Monster swap bodies after the latter's body-swapping gadget is accidentally triggered during a battle. Naturally, Happy S. in the monster's body is mistaken for the villain by the other Supermen.
In one episode of Hello Jadoo, Jadoo and Minji switch bodies after spinning too quickly on a roundabout whilst wishing that they could have an older brother and younger siblings respectively.
Lamput: In "Transfer Gun", the Boss invents a ray gun with this effect. The Boss and Lamput get hit by shots from the gun by accident, and the Boss in Lamput's body initially has trouble getting the docs to believe he's not actually Lamput.
In the Motu Patlu episode "Soul Change", Ghasitaram tricks Motu and Patlu into entering a body-swapping machine made by Dr. Jhatka. The two confuse Chaiwala when they go to his samosa stand and he assumes that Patlu is eating samosas while Motu is reading the paper - the exact opposite of what they would normally do.
In the Noonbory and the Super 7 episode "The Great Switcheroo", a magic spell causes Cozybory and Wangury to swap bodies.
One episode of Tobot has Limo mixing up the Mind Cores, resulting in them being placed in the wrong bodies. Specifically, Tobot X's Mind Core is in Tobot D, Tobot Y's is in Tobot R, Tobot Z's is in Tobot X, Tobot D's is in Tobot Y, and Tobot R's is in Tobot Z.

Audio Plays

The Big Finish Doctor Who story, "The Curse of Davros" sees the Sixth Doctor switching bodies with Davros.
Torchwood (Big Finish): The Evolved were given a gift by the Committee which allows them to swap consciousnesses, which is used in the audios "Forgotten Lives" and "Another Man's Shoes". In "Forgotten Lives", Jack gets his consciousness swapped with that of Mr. Griffith, which is then swapped with that of Ceri, and Anwen gets her consciousness swapped with that of Elunedd. In "Another Man's Shoes", Yvonne is swapped with Andy, Norton with Tyler, and Jack with Mr. Colchester.

Films — Animation

In a scrapped scene in Cars, Lightning is given a choice of participating in a race or doing community service. When he picks the community service, he wakes up the next day and finds that his engine (apparently the car equivalent of a brain) has been put into a steamroller, much to his horror, and Mater's engine has been put in Lightning's body, which he uses to take over Lightning's life. Fortunately, this is All Just a Dream, but when he wakes up he fearfully changes his mind and decides to do the race instead.
In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Amazing Pleasant Goat, Wolffy has a body-swapping rug with him when he, Paddi, and Weslie are all transported to the prehistoric age. He and Paddi are on the body-swapping rug when they're transported, causing Wolffy to wind up in Paddi's body and vice versa for part of the movie.
Happens to Donkey and Puss-n-Boots in Shrek the Third as a side-effect of Merlin's teleporation spell. Merlin returns to help swap them back to their rightful bodies, and while successful, he also ends up swapping their tails by accident.

Literature

Near the end of book six of Captain Underpants, Mr. Krupp and Melvin Sneedly accidentally swap bodies. Getting them to swap back takes up much of the plot of book seven.
Jack Chalker uses this trope in so many books, a character in the round-robin novel The Red Tape War breaks the fourth wall to complain that he's overdone it and ask the other authors why they don't rein him in.
One of several Gamebooks based on Club Penguin (the "Pick Your Path" books), "The Great Puffle Switch", is based around the viewpoint character (a penguin, obviously) swapping bodies with their pet Puffle (i.e. small fuzzy limbless creatures kept as pets on Club Penguin for the uninformed) after a lightning related mishap at the Night Club.
Happened in the Doctor Who Expanded Universe novel Half Life, although with a bit of a Personality Swap element — despite swapping all their habits, personality traits, and their memories, they retained their basic selves, and afterward remembered what it was like to have the other person's mind. Apparently, it's really fun to be the Doctor, not so much the companion he swapped with. There's a very touching scene after they've switched back where the Doctor actually cries — which is a big deal for him — because he hadn't realized before just how much hell he puts his companions through.
Dragon Princess by S. Andrew Swann: Main character Frank is offered the hand of the princess if he can rescue her from the dragon, but it turns out to be a trap by the Royal Wizard who intends to use a Body Swap spell to steal Frank's body and marry the princess himself. Only the spell goes wrong and Frank ends up in the princess's body, the dragon ends up in the wizard's body, and the princess ends up in the dragon's body! After the dust clears Frank had to kill the wizard (in his old body, so Frank could never return to it) to save the princess (in the dragon's body), while the dragon (in the wizard's body) was forced into servitude for The Fair Folk to cover his enormous gambling debt (which was why he'd kidnapped the princess in the first place). And thanks to the Exact Words of the kingdom's law, the princess (in the dragon's body) is forced to marry Frank (who's in her old body).
Fear Street has Switched, where a depressed girl named Nicole is offered to switch bodies with her friend Lucy. Subverted when it turns out that this was all in her mind, as Lucy died a while ago and Nicole couldn't cope with it. Its sister series, Ghosts of Fear Street had Body Switchers from Outer Space, where a klutzy boy named Will switches with the popular kid, who turns out to be an alien.
In Beatrice Gormley's Fifth Grade Magic protagonist Gretchen and her rival Amy spent most of a day in each other's bodies as the result of an overly-enthusiastic Fairy Godmother wannabe.
Mary Rodgers' 1972 novel Freaky Friday, on which the film adaptations are based and for which the trope is directly or indirectly named, switched a mother and a daughter. The sequel, Summer Switch, swaps the other members of that family, the father Bill and the son Ben (a.k.a. Ape Face).
In the Goosebumps book, Why I'm Afraid of Bees, Gary, the main character, stumbles upon a service that switches you with whoever you want. However, he accidentally ends up in the body of a bee. Horror ensues.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short story "The Great Keinplatz Experiment".
Happens to two of the protagonists of Esther Friesner's Harpy High; since one of them has a physically abusive father, the other one acquires a little more understanding than he wanted.
The premise of the Todd Strasser book Help! I'm Trapped... in My Teacher's Body, as well as most, but not all, of its sequels.
Occurs in Paul Collin's Jelindel Chronicles. Zimak tricks Daretor into swapping bodies, after saving him from a prince who was trying to do just the same. Daretor by this point is getting truly frustrated, as already his sword skills were magically stripped from him, and now he had to deal with being in a much weaker body after being a tank. And in these books, changes tend to be permanent.
The entire premise of the kids' series Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo is this trope. She switches bodies with other characters partway through each story, thanks to a magic wind.
Lafayette O'Leary: In The Shape Changer, O'Leary finds himself swapping bodies with a series of strange people for reasons he doesn't entirely understand. It starts with a local thief named Zorro, but soon after, he finds himself swapping with people from other worlds. It's an unusual variant where the minds stay where they were, and the bodies change places.
The basis of P. G. Wodehouse's novel Laughing Gas, in which Reginald, third Earl of Havershot, and Joey Cooley, child film star and the Idol of American Motherhood swap bodies while under sedation at the dentist. Reggie's narration makes clear that this was already a well-worn trope by the 1930s, as Reggie is familiar with the idea and muses about how in fiction, the people who fall victim to this are never believed.
In the second book of the Love Hina light novel series, Motoko and Kitsune are switched by Motoko's older sister. (Suu and Shinobu are also switched, albeit briefly).
In the adventure gamebook, Magehunter, the titular hero and his close friend, Reinhardt the Prince, is cursed by the villainous mage, Mencius, to swap their bodies. Much of the adventure have both Reinhardt and the Magehunter consistently swapping around at random until they find a way to defeat Mencius.
Magic: The Gathering: In Agents of Artifice, Jace Beleren accidentally induces a flip between himself and his friend Kallist. The swap is so thorough that neither party even realizes anything has changed — each goes about his own business as usual, believing himself to be the other.
In The Mirror, by Marlys Millhiser, the titular family heirloom swaps Brandy McCabe (in 1900) and granddaughter Shay Garrett (in 1978) on the eve of each woman's wedding.
In My Brother is a Superhero, Zack and Luke switch bodies in the fourth book, meaning that Luke finally has a chance to experience having superpowers.
Anton and Olga switch minds in The Night Watch as part of a plan to draw out a plot by the Day Watch. The scene also averts No Periods, Period by having Olga tell Anton that he's lucky this isn't happening a few weeks later, or she'd have to instruct him on the use of tampons. In a Deadpan Snarker manner, Anton replies that he knows what needs to be done: he needs to pour some blue liquid on the tampon and the squeeze it in his fist, like all the commercials show. Anton's reply is absent in the English translation (possibly because women use pads now). The film version has this swap occurring in the second movie, Day Watch.
In Diana Wynne Jones's book The Ogre Downstairs, a mystical chemistry set leads (among other things) to two kids in a recently blended family switching bodies for a day. This is the first step towards the two sets of children actually getting along. The swap is discovered after two Not Himself situations.
In Parker Pyne Investigates, an obscure Agatha Christie series, Mr. Parker Pyne's job is to make people happy. In "The Case of the Rich Woman", a rich widow named Abner Rymer comes to Parker Pyne requesting help with her boredom since she has buckets of money and nothing enjoyable to do with it. He hires a doctor who manages to switch her body with an Identical Stranger farmgirl named Hannah. Things seem to go wrong almost immediately when Abner reads a newspaper suggesting that Hannah was locked in a mental institution for claiming she wasn't Abner. It turns out to be a subversion. "Hannah" never existed and the newspaper was fake. This was all part of a plan to give Abner happiness. It works.
Quarters: Fifth Quarter's plot is sparked when Gyhard, Bannon and Vree's target, does this to the former. Bannon finds himself in Aralt's dying body, having to share Vree's.
This happens to the male heroes of Riddle of the Seven Realms, as a side effect of a time/space-warping magical weapon. Unusual in that it's done neither for social commentary nor comedy; rather, it gives the djinn hero a chance to experience life as a human, and vice versa.
The 1931 novel Turnabout by Thorne Smith (see above for the 1940 film adaptation), in which suburban couple Sally and Tim Willows have their bodies switched by the statue of a minor deity in their house who becomes fed up with their constant bickering. Sally now has to take over her husband's job in an advertising agency and on a drunken night manages to impregnate Tim, who in chapter XVIII "was delivered of his child and became by virtue of the achievement the first male mother on record."
In kid's picture book A Twisted Tale by Carolyn Fisher, the animals that live on a farm belonging to the Tarbell family end up apparently switched around this way after getting sucked up by a tornado, resulting in the cow crowing every morning while the duck moos, the cat barking at and chasing the screeching dog, and the oinking chickens wallowing in mud while the quacking pig wades in the water and wrinkles up like a prune. After numerous failed attempts to return the animals to normal, the farmer's daughter solves the problem by going to the fair and loading up herself and the animals onto a tornado-themed roller coaster. The ride returns the animals to normal, but with the side-effect of turning the daughter into a wind-swept, noodle-limbed nut.
Older Than Radio: Used in F. Anstey's 1882 novel Vice Versa to swap a father and son. This may have inspired Mary Rodger's 1972 novel.
In Marghanita Laski's novel The Victorian Chaise Longue, a modern woman buys a Victorian couch at a bargain price because it has an old dried bloodstain that can't be removed. Falling asleep on the couch, she wakens on the same couch in Victorian times, inhabiting the body of the couch's original owner. The couch is now new and unstained, and the woman suspects (correctly) that her impending death will cause the bloodstain.
Gets a Darker and Edgier treatment in We Can't Rewind, which seriously examines some of the unsettling and far-reaching sexual implications parent-and-child swaps as in the original Freaky Friday story might have if the parents in question were married and the swaps couldn't be reversed.
This is the focus of Franny Billingsley's Well Wished. Nuria tries to trick her town's Jackass Genie of a wishing well into giving her crippled friend Catty the ability to walk, and ends up wishing that "Catty would have a body just like mine." The result is the girls spending the holiday season in each other's bodies. Nuria undoes the switch by sneaking a new wish into Catty's lines in their play.
In Alexandre Dumas's The Wolf Leader, the protagonist uses his pact with the (magical) wolves to switch bodies with a local baron for 24 hours, in order to sleep with a countess having an affair with the baron. He is discovered and mortally wounded by the countess' husband, but just then, the 24 hours elapse and the protagonist switches back to his own body... which turns out to be trapped inside a house set on fire by angry villagers fed up with his dark powers.
In Brandon Sanderson's Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, the two protagonists switch places when Yumi frees a spirit from the Father Machine. Unlike most examples, only one of the two bodies is conscious at a time; its owner becomes a ghost that's Invisible to Normals and can't wander far from their body. And because of her powerful Investiture, Yumi can subconsciously reshape Painter's body to match her self-image. While he has to pretend to be her, she only has to cover for his absence.
In Irvine Welsh’s short story “The Acid House” (in his book of the same title) a foul mouthed football hooligan gets struck by lightning whilst tripping on LSD… so he ends up swapping bodies with a Middle Class couple’s baby!

Music

In Johnny Cash's song "Chicken in Black", Johnny's "body's outlived [his] brain", so he is given the brain of a recently killed bank robber. And Johnny's brain winds up in a chicken. Hilarity Ensues.
The song "Freaky Friday" by Lil Dicky and Chris Brown, as you may guess, is about the two of them swapping bodies for a day. Dicky quickly winds up enamored with his celebrity friends and lifestyle, his R&B singing voice, his bigger penis, and his newfound N-Word Privileges, while Chris is initially happy to be away from his scandal-filled personal life, until he realizes that he might never see his daughter again and that Dicky is acting like a fool in his body. ("My dick is trending on Twitter? ***!") At the end, Dicky also hops into the bodies of Ed Sheeran, DJ Khaled, and Kendall Jenner; with the last one, he immediately starts feeling up his new body.
The concept for Pentagon's song "Round 2" is about the members waking up to discover that they have swapped bodies with each other.
Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)" has the singer asking God to let her swap bodies with her male lover so that they could both experience what life is like in the other's shoes (as it would help them to truly understand one other, and clear up their misunderstandings).

Pinball

The Mad Scientist's experiment in Strange Science involves doing this with a teenage girl and a chimpanzee.

Puppet Shows

Groundling Marsh: It happens to Mud and Maggie in the episode "Tupelo Treat" when the Groundlings use the wrong recipe and accidentally create something that switches their minds when they eat it. For some reason, Mud still needs his glasses in Maggie's body, so not only are voices mental, but apparently eyesight is too. Also, Mud is half of a Multiple Head Case, while Maggie is a Genki Girl who can't sit still, so things get a little crazy until they switch back.
The Muppet Show: One "Pigs in Space!" sketch has Doctor Strangepork testing out his dissolvatron, which makes items disappear and reappear. When tried on people, it switches their minds around, leading to Miss Piggy and Link Hogthrob in each other's bodies, much to Piggy's upset ("DON'T TOUCH YOU!"). Then it gets bizarre, as the device swaps Strangepork's mind with Janice, even though she wasn't in the skit, and then Kermit and the Swedish Chef, causing Kermit to demand the sketch end then and there.
Sesame Street:
- In a 1990s episode, Mumford does a magic trick where he switches places with a dog, but things go awry when the dog, in Mumford's body and still holding the wand, runs away and leaves him unable to undo the trick.
- In the special When You Wish Upon a Pickle, a mysterious (and sentient) Wish Pickle, which grants one wish per customer, is delivered to Sesame Street. Elmo's wish to be grown-up and Chris' wish to be younger causes them to do this (represented visually by having the two switch outfits as well).

Tabletop Games

Dungeons & Dragons
- The Mind Switch and True Mind Switch spells. While Mind Switch is only semi-permanent, True Mind Switch is completely permanent and can only be undone by another True Mind Switch.
- Before this, 2nd edition had the "Switch Personality" telepathic science from The Complete Psionic Handbook. It allows the psionicist to switch mind with another creature, but any prolonged use is dangerous, as both bodies tend to degrade when inhabited by the wrong mind.
- The Complete Book of Necromancers also introduced the "Life Force Exchange" spell, which is permanent and can be used on any two creatures (including or not the caster). It is one of two powerful spells allowing aged necromancers to abandon their old body for a new, younger and stronger one.
- This is just one condition that the Alchemist's Apparatus, an evil device found the Ravenloft setting can create. (It can also split one being into two bodies, one good and one evil, or merge two beings into one body.) The only way to reverse any of this device's effects is to use it a second time, and using it at all is incredibly dangerous. (Not only is it prone to blowing up, it tends to drive the victims insane, requiring Ravenloft Powers checks for the user and Madness Checks for the victims. Unfortunately, even when it does blow up, someone always rebuilds it later.)

Web Animation

The Academy Of Magic: The Coven of the Star briefly swap bodies in "Doing Your Dares". Aura swaps to Faith, Dezi swaps to Aura, Xavier swaps to Dezi, and Faith swaps to Xavier.
Xavier: Oh my god I’m in a girl’s body!!
Aura: At least you don’t look like a walking highlighter.
Aura: This uniform is revolting.
Faith: Xavier’s body is so strong!
Xavier: And Dezi’s is kinda hot.
Dezi: You better not do anything in there, you pervert!
ATTACK on MIKA: Ichi and Mika swap bodies after Ichi made a wish to get a girlfriend. Ichi in Mika's body saw that Mika has a hard life and refused help from others when he previously thought that she was a snob.
Triggering this trope is just one of many ways to get grounded in GoAnimate "Grounded" videos. For one example, this video involves Caillou switching bodies with his mother in an attempt to avoid getting grounded. Unfortunately for Caillou, the switch lasts for all of about 20 seconds before he and his mom switch back, after which he is given additional grounding time for the swap. Voices Are Mental tends to be in effect whenever this occurs.
This occurs between Red and Blue and Raccoon in the Dick Figures episode "Brain Switch".
Dr. Havoc's Diary: Episode 24, appropriately called "Freaky Friday". All thanks to one of Havoc's machines, this happens between Ally and Havoc, and then various other characters as well. Oh, and Voices Are Mental is averted.
I'm Anton!: An old lady named Claire swapped bodies with the young Rolly using a machine invented by Siora. Claire enjoyed youth in Rolly's body while Rolly struggled due to Claire's old age and health problems.
Inanimate Insanity: Invitational: In the aptly two-parter episode "Out of Body Experience", MePhone accidentally crushed his contestants to death with a falling bridge and had to perform a mass recovery so he wouldn't look bad in front of his harshest critic. However, since he never attempted to revive so many people at once, their minds are accidentally regenerated into the wrong bodies. This causes a five-pair swap between Clover and Test Tube, Paintbrush and The Floor, Candle and Silver Spoon, Goo and Balloon and Yin and Yang^note that wasn't resolved until another incident involving a comically-oversized match burns everyone alive and MePhone recovers them one at a time.
Mani Mani People: Hinano swapped bodies with the introverted protagonist by casting a spell by running with him. At first the protagonist hated being in Hinano's body and Hinano changed the protagonist's body look much to his dismay. With time, they got to know each other and they tried to cast the spell again to reverse it but they were not successful.

Webcomics

An Applegeeks arc involves Alice switching bodies with a megalomaniacal little girl.
A one shot villain in Arthur, King of Time and Space restrains Arthur, gloats about becoming high king, pulls the switch ... and then realises that now he's the one in the restraints.
An NSFW^note comic by Ian Samson involves two lovers swapping bodies to teach each other what pleases them the most (which in her case, involves Wall Bang Her).
The Gender Bender version shows up in The Dragon Doctors when Mori's Spell Gun explodes.
El Goonish Shive:
- The non-canon NP arc "Goonmanji" features Tedd and Elliot switching bodies with Sarah and Grace respectively, thanks to a cursed board game.
- Tedd and Grace emulated a body-swap using the TF Gun to turn into each other's forms. After all, Grace studied Tedd...
  Grace: ...and couples switching bodies is #37 on your list of weird things you like.
- Another simulated instance happens when a haywire Magic Mirror misfires at a party, transforming everyone present (except Tedd and Diane) into someone else. These transformations are more thorough than usual, meaning Grace gets stuck with Tedd's bad eyesight and Nanase has to deal with Grace's Bizarre Alien Senses.
In Girly, there is an arc where many primary and secondary characters get switched around due to a "fist-powered" ray.
One of Lamerix's inventions in Jix caused Lauren and Jix/Lamerix/Remula (all three of Remula's personalities) to switch. The trio caused Lauren to break her arm as they were not used to walking without a tail.
The comic Lady Valiant has superhero fanboy Tom switch bodies with the titular hero after being caught in the crossfire of a fight, later learning that her secret identity is that of his homeroom teacher's. While she remains in a coma in his body, he tries to keep her life running with his best friend as the only person aware of the switch. Barring dressing in a more provocative manner once for class and being more aware of his new body, Tom is more interested in goofing off, testing his new powers and making notes out of them and needlessly spending Lady Valiant's admittedly large amount of money than anything else. At the very least, he does his best to keep her life intact as much as possible, moreso in terms of being a good superhero than being a teacher. Later developments Lady Valiant herself soon reawakens from her coma and regains some of her powers while in Tom's body and can even transform it female in turn.
In The Handbook of Heroes, a botched resurrection combined with a failed summoning ritual ends with Demon Queen in Magus' body and Magus as Demon Queen.
In Little Lapses, this is conversed in the first Q&A section, where Team BlazeEmberIvory is asked on who they'd switch bodies with. Holly would like to switch with one of her moms so she'd know what it's like to have a grown-up job; Cinnabar would like to switch with Blue so she'd become the "BEST POKÉMON ON THE PLANET", while Blue, a trans girl, would like to switch with Holly or Cinnabar so she'd know what it's like to have a cis female body for a day.
In L's Empire, Void and Gemininman end up in each other's bodies the second time Spearhead is defused, due to Present!Pix's inexperience with his fusion powers. Coincidentally, the page that they swapped went up on a Friday.
This was a central element in a Mountain Time story arc.
In Off-White, the humans want to transfer the white spirit wolf's spirit into a human body to bring back the balance that was lost when the human white spirit disappeared. It must be a wolf because the only thing they have to go by is an old legend that pairs wolves and man together as being created at the same time.
PvP did this with Brent and Skull.
Joked about in Questionable Content, where Hannelore thinks this is happening because she dreamed about it.
In Rain Burn the volcano dragon Brand and quetz Lady Saida accidentally switch bodies while trying to recover Brand's wings from the quetz queen. Their Kitsune cohort Roko is even less fortunate, winding up in a balloon animal.
In Sidekick Girl, the eponymous character gets switched with her useless but decorative boss and immediately complains about the cliché.
In Sluggy Freelance a filler storyline by Phil Foglio has Torg and Zoe switch bodies, but unable to remember anything that happened during the bodyswap once it's reversed.
In Tales of Gnosis College, Willie and the lady professor he does work study for achieve a temporary and apparently accidental Freaky Friday Flip through an experiment with hypnosis and drugs. It leads to a torrid example of Professionals Do It on Desks.
Tales of Greed: "Calling" involves a phone that can swap the bodies of the caller and the recipient. The protagonist uses it to get back at his bullies and to date girls with handsome boyfriends, but he eventually winds up in the body of a serial killer with two murderous split personalities.
In a three-part Whomp! arc, Ronnie and Agrias experience this as a result of a Bungled Suicide. Ronnie still tries to go through with his original plan, only now it's closer to murder.
The Wotch uses this as an alternative to its usually more direct sort of genderbending, by (repeatedly) swapping the characters of Irene and James. Happens so often that it doesn't even bother them anymore. Irene even liked being swapped, and has agonized about asking to be intentionally switched.
- In "What's my age again?", this gets a little more complicated. When Anne uses the amulet that turns her older brother Evan into Lilly, she sneezes during the spell, causing Evan's mind in Lilly's body and vice versa. Like in Birdy the Mighty, Lilly and Evan are in the same body, but they are completely different people.
Wright as Rayne has a one-sided version of this. Vigilante Alex Rayne is forced to inhabit the body of teenage girl Dorothy Wright, but Wright's mind is in some kind of stasis.
Your Throne is built around this trope. Medea, who used to be engaged to the crown prince, switches bodies with Psyche, who is currently engaged to the crown prince. The switch takes place on the yearly day of prayer, and appears to be an act of God in response to Medea's prayer that He give her everything that Psyche has. She is alarmed to discover that Psyche's life was not nearly as ideal as it seemed.

Web Original

The Britanick video "A Monologue for Three" ends with a four-way body swap between Brian, Nick, Danny Pudi, and . . . well, you'll just have to watch it.
This happens to all the main characters in The Devil is a Part-Timer!'s Halloween OVA.
In Ducktalez 3, Vegeta pulls a Captain Ginyu on Scrooge McDuck. Vegeta gets Scrooge's art style and Scrooge gets Vegeta's art style. Dewey and Louie immediately wonder why Scrooge looks crappy.
There is a web series made by Three friends from Florida called Freaky Forever. It can be watched here.
How to Hero has a whole entry on mind-swaps.
In the LoadingReadyRun video "Brain Transplants Made Easy", Paul does this to everyone just to prove a point. This is taken to the hilarious extremes of Jer getting switched with Dana (a random stranger) and Bill getting switched with Gib (a puppet).
Noob has a dungeon that will cause an avatar switch between two players after the first boss gets beaten. Voices don't change despite the fact that it would actually make sense.
Pretending to Be People features a magical radio capable of swapping minds between two bodies. When we first see it, it's swapped the minds of a grown man and a house cat.
Renegade Rhetoric, a Character Blog for Cy-Kill from Challenge of the GoBots that largely consisted of describing the events of episodes from a non-existent second season of the cartoon, had a case of this happen in the post concerning the faux-episode "Brain Swap", where an accident resulted in the leader of the Renegades switching minds with the Guardian Scooter.
SuperMarioLogan:
- Used in the episode, "Switching Bodies!". Chef Pee Pee and Bowser Junior both go to bed wishing what it's like to be each other, and then wake up the next morning with their bodies switched. Hilarity Ensues, surprisingly. This is soon exploited when Chef Pee Pee-as-Junior tells Junior's friends to take his toys, and Junior-as-Chef Pee Pee angrily gets back at him by telling Bowser to start beating, strangling, insulting and paying him, knowing that Chef Pee Pee will get blamed for saying that.
- Used again in the episode, "Life Is Ruff!". Junior and his pet Chain Chomp, Chompy get hit by Woody's truck, and somehow end up in each other's bodies. The entire episode is a Whole-Plot Reference to the 2005 Disney Channel Original movie of the same name.
- Used yet again "1 2 Switch Bodies!", wherein a lightning bolt strikes Junior and Jeffy while they are playing 1-2 Switch on the Nintendo Switch, switching their bodies as a result. Near the end of the video, the exact same thing happens to Chef Pee Pee and Cody.
When Body Switching Movies Collide is a skit done by the Cracked staff. It starts off when Sam Beckett Leaped into Ellen Cunningham's mind after she switched bodies with Anna. Sam Cunningham, Ellen's dead husband, shows up, explaining how he will possess Sam and have sex with Ellen one last time. Al argues that Sam Cunningham possessing Sam Beckett to have sex with Ellen would result in Anna's body having sex with Helen, who has Anna's mind at the moment. The Ghost Sam leaves in disgust, saying he plans to have sex with someone else. Al reveals that Anna is a secret agent hired for the Stargate project in the Torchwood Institute in Roswell. Trinity, who works for the Millenium Group, shows up in a Slider Hole and explains that the world is a false reality created by sophisticated computers contained within the mind of John Horatio Malkovich. When Sam Beckett asks Al to Leap him out of this madness, Al can't because he's actually a Cylon. It turns out it was all Michael Swaim's dream, and the camera zooms out to reveal that sequence was imagined by Michael looking at his snowglobe.
- "So You've Swapped Bodies With Your Mortal Enemy" which is about a guy finding out he switched bodies with his mortal enemy.
Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers pulls this off accordingly, not once, not twice, but three times.
- "The Switcheroooveralls". Mario, SMG4 and most of the gang switch their color codes in this blooper. Hilarious antics ensue, including a crazy Indian mistaking FM54321 for MCGustavo, and attempting to chase him as revenge for stealing his toilet, Luigi, in X's body, becoming friends with a Toad zombie he calls "Brains", and Toad even becoming a rock, forced to spend his time with Bowser after accidentally getting thrown towards his lair.
- The episode "The Swap", where Mario annoys a wizard to the point where he switches his and SMG4's bodies as punishment. It doesn't help that SMG4 is applying for a job as a janitor.
- "Mineswap" has this. Mario starts to break a scientist guy's machine as Steve mistakes it for chocolate, leading to the two swapping body shapes; Mario becomes a Minecraft model while Steve is a Super Mario 64 color code. This is defied since in the end, the machine is destroyed and Mario and Steve are still in their opposite body shapes.
In one episode of The Time... Guys, Doc Chronos invents a brain-switching device. Turns out he can only invent time machines.

Web Videos

Parodied in Joel Haver's "Freaky Friday but the characters learn the lesson as quickly as the audience", where two friends deduce that the universe body-swapped them because they were arguing about their inability to walk in each other's shoes, and then they are promptly switched back.
Oxventure has this as the plot of their D&D livestream following an hour-long stay in a sensory deprivation tank run by an incompetent satyr.
Andy: (upon realizing the swap) Motherf-
This TF2 SFM Animation "Mann Swap", has Scout and Heavy suddenly switch minds after they fighting to a teleporter 1 by 1 and gets teleported.
Another SFM Animation "Nick & Ellis Comedy Show-episode 8: SWITCH!", happens to Zoey, Rochelle, Ellis and Nick after gets hit by a lightning strike which is enough to switch body.

Real Life

Scientists have found that by syncing a pair of VR goggles on one person's head with a set of cameras on a mannequin or another person's head, the brain is fooled into believing that they are in the body of the mannequin or the other person. Again, no, seriously, this is very similar to Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare's Hacking Device.

"Freaky Friday" Flip

Example subpages:

Other examples:

Video Example(s):

Romi & Heartsping

Alternative Title(s): Body Swap, Mind Swap

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Romi & Heartsping