I think I would just want to be a bird of some sort, one that can fly long distances. Maybe an albatross or something, idk
When I look down at the tiny creatures in a calm, weedy pond I always feel relaxed and cozy.
Although the lives of those animals are full of predation and death I can’t help but romanticize and project the calm feel they give me onto them.
If I were to be a different organism I’d like to be a tiny planarian worm or plankton living in a small aquatic world.
These comments bring to mind a book scorpion. Find a thick book in a musty old library and settle in. You can live out your full life eating the paste and never come across a predator.
Sounds delicious!
It would be so cool to be an Albatross, I feel like I would be a Snowy Albatross (Diomedea exulans)! They have such a large wingspan and can fly effortlessly for hours! I would love that.
I liked their other name better: Wandering Albatross.
Me too, I was sad when I found out about the name change. I liked Wandering Albatross much better!
I didn’t even know they changed it, that’s so sad
Four years later, @tallastro officially wins the Internet for today. I have spoken.
My interest and education in evolutionary biology and psychology has led me to believe that every organism has its own subjective experience due to its nature and evolutionary story. But I think humans are special in having the tools for awareness of the subjective experience and connection to others, which I appreciate. (I think other spp are not aware of being aware, which isn’t bad but wouldn’t be my preference.) So if I have to choose another spp to be, it would be something as much like human as possible, like other primates or dolphins so that I could have some awareness of the context of being part of nature.
A bear, hands down.
I can hibernate in the winter, spend the rest of the year eating fish, meat, berries and scratching my back on trees 
Just a house cat will be fine.
But hang on - I thought these were common names, and therefore are about what names people use for organisms? (Showing my naivety!) Surely if everyone prefers the ‘old’ name and just keeps on using it, that shows it’s still the common name…
A Vegetarian Eagle, this is a fantasy question after all.
Hunting and ripping smaller creatures limb from limb and consuming raw has no appeal, sashimi it’s not.
The safety of being almost top of the food chain has great appeal and Ive plenty of practice under my belt as a small woman living in a rather Blokey world . Fruit and veg trembling before me would be sufficient and I would have to mostly avoid Humans so not much change there 
Manatee for sure. They always look so content and peaceful. And they are vegetarians with no real predators and they get to live in Florida where it is warm. Just watch out for speedboats, and you’re golden. 
Except now, I hear – as a whale shark, you’ve become a favorite target of a certain group of orcas.
Welcome to the clan!
I don’t want to derail the thread, but just to say that the name Wandering Albatross still exists, but for the complex that now includes the Snowy Albatross and other species that have been recently recognised as full species.
An albatross would be a good choice. I imagine it would be amazing to be able to fly like a swift or swim like an otter.
I love wasps, I think they are one of the most gorgeous things here, yet I don’t think as a wasp I would be able to appreciate beauty. If I must also face parasitic infections, starvation, cold, and being eaten alive, I think I would stay as I am and enjoy watching instead.
However, the real answer must be a bird. Any bird. Even a despised feral pigeon can fly in a way that we can never achieve, even with a Skunkswork budget.
Something migratory, perhaps an albatros, though they mostly fly over monotonous ocean, and lack a little in vitality of flight. So I suppose the answer must be a swift. Never to settle, to see the jungles, the savannah, the grasslands, the temperate forests, even the cities, and always on the wing.
Hmm… being a cockroach or a mosquito might be interesting for a little while, but I don’t like the idea of being on the wrong end of a fly swatter. I’d definitely have to go with some kind of arthropod, so maybe I’d be an isopod or some kind of tide pool crustacean.