"The group of artists and scientists that had so far done least was the one that had attracted the greatest interest - and the greatest alarm. This was the team working on ‘total identification’. The history of the cinema gave the clue to their actions. First, sound, then colour, then stereoscopy, then Cinerama, had made the old ‘moving pictures’ more and more like reality itself. Where was the end of the story? Surely, the final stage would be reached when the audience forgot it was an audience, and became part of the action. To achieve this would involve stimulation of all the senses, and perhaps hypnosis as well, but many believed it to be practical. When the goal was attained, there would be an enormous enrichment of human experience. A man could become - for a while, at least - any other person, and could take part in any conceivable adventure, real or imaginary. He could even be plant or animal, if it proved possible to capture and record the sense impressions of other living creatures. And when the ‘programme’ was over, he would have acquired a memory as vivid as any experience in his actual life indeed, indistinguishable from reality itself.

The prospect was dazzling. Many also found it terrifying and hoped that the enterprise would fail. But they knew in their hearts that once science had declared a thing possible, there was no escape from its eventual realization..."

Arthur C. Clarke in Childhood's End, published in 1952.