I'm Alan Olga and this is Clear In Vivid, conversations about connecting and communicating.

When an octopus is literally reaching out to you, they want to know who are you?

What have you got that would interest me?

So up from the water comes their questing suckers and they want to taste you and they want to feel you and they want to look at your face.

I'm more than eager to meet them halfway.

That's Simon Gumrie, the author and octopus whisperer.

Right before we sat down to talk, Sia introduced me to her latest octopus friend Rudy.

Rudy is a giant Pacific octopus.

She lives at the New England Aquarium in Boston and she must have liked how I looked and tasted because she spent a good 20 minutes apparently trying to pull me into her tank.

Sia, I'm so excited to be talking to you today because you know octopus and I think I think the octopus is my favorite animal.

Oh good, well, I see why.

And the thing is, the thing that's so interesting to me about talking with you is we talk about communication and relating all the time.

But you communicate in ways that we haven't talked about yet.

You communicate with animals that seems to me to be really different and special.

Is it different from the way you communicate with people?

I think so because I find it natural to be with animals. They're like my people and sometimes I feel awkward with people.

That's interesting. How do you do it with animals that's different than with people?

In what way do you engage them that's different?

Well, some of them are very interested in us and an octopus is one of the creatures that is very interested in us.

And when an octopus is literally reaching out to you, I'm more than eager to meet them halfway and you can see it.

And it's very real and sometimes with people, you know, we bring a mask to the meeting.

And animals can conceal their own feelings as you probably know chimpanzees will actually clap their hands over their mouth to prevent themselves from saying,

...