A threatening aura, specifically, can be a person, location, or thing that makes you feel like you're in danger, as seen in these photos. These animate and inanimate things are sometimes in a deranged state.
Over the years, people have run into animals, food, texts, and even toilets that appear to have bad spirits. And the ‘Signs With Threatening Auras’ group is a fairly new addition to the internet aura community. Founded in 2020, they have amassed nearly 50,000 members.
But if you just type the word "aura" into a search engine online, you will get varied results. You might either land on a spiritual website explaining how living things are surrounded by color-specific energy fields or you might read medical literature about the aura of a migraine.
Out of all the people who get a migraine, around 25 to 30% experience an aura. A migraine aura is an outbreak of sensory disturbances or disruptions that an individual feels right before the actual attack. These distractions can be things like seeing sparks or bright dots, feeling tingling sensations on the body, or an inability to talk properly. These symptoms can change and evolve with time and they typically last 5-60 minutes.
Auras don’t usually occur during every attack. There are 3 major types of aura: visual, sensory, and aphasic. People most commonly experience a visual aura. It accounts for 90% of all migraine auras and includes seeing zigzags, flashes, or losing the ability to see for a short duration. However, it’s confusing, as patients are unable to determine whether it’s occurring in one or both eyes.
Dr. Kathleen Digre, a professor of neurology and ophthalmology and director of the Headache Clinic at the University of Utah, explained “Most of the time [the aura] starts in the center of vision and goes out. And it often goes out to one side or the other side. It makes the person who has it think that it’s in one eye… but it’s actually coming from the brain, from the occipital lobe.”
Sensory aura begins in body parts like the fingers and mouth and can eventually spread. Sometimes it’s just a tingling sensation. An individual might feel its impact on only one side of the body. Aphasic aura occurs rarely, and it causes speech difficulty. Dr. Digre points out, “So they can’t think of the words they want to say, or the words come out wrong.”
For most patients, an aura is followed by a headache. But in some cases, people don’t get the head pain; they just experience the aura. Only 4% of individuals with migraine auras don’t get a headache later. This generally occurs in 2 age groups: young adults in their 20s and 30s and older individuals between the ages of 40 and 60. It’s important that people visit a doctor when they go through something like this.
