midnight aura

Olive the Cat wakes me up every morning sometime between 2 and 5, and I go put food in her bowl. This morning, at 2:30, I'm awakened by her scratching at the baseboard, and as I wake up I think I see fortification spectrum... turns out I'm about halfway through an aura. Left visual field, about 15 minutes in (noting for reference that the pain is on the right side, supraorbital nerve). I debated turning on the computer so I could record the remainder, but I think it was too far along to be worthwhile. The spectrum extended from fovea straight left, then arced downward. I watched it for a while - I'm still impressed at how straight it is at that point, I wonder if the CSD wave somehow gets caught up in the base of the calcarine sulcus.

The scotoma seemed very small, even when the wave was well into the periphery the blind region didn't seem thicker than the scintillations. The scintillations were very clear, whereas usually I don't see them very clearly - maybe because I was dark adapted the whole time, or my brain was in a sleepytime state, or maybe it was just a random thing. I did notice that closing my eyes, even though it didn't change the apparent luminance of the scene very much, made the phosphenes completely disappear for several seconds, and they would fade back into view only weakly, slowly. I couldn't go back to sleep for ~45 minutes. Ears were almost ringing, headache started. Minor, 5/10.

Yesterday, and maybe Thursday, several times, I noticed flashes, spots, in my periphery, and thought, 'something is up'. Yesterday afternoon, I'm sitting at my computer, reading text near the lower bezel, and I feel I see a phosphene or blind spot just below fixation, where the aura usually starts - it lasts ~10 seconds and disappears. Maybe that represented a false start? The cortex is weakly susceptible, and maybe there are false starts, and then it kicks off - or doesn't. Also, after the syncope episode, I've started to wonder if the tinnitus I get now and then is, at least sometimes, an aura - I had an episode yesterday.

I was dreaming about something as I woke up, and it seemed relevant somehow, but of course I've completely forgotten it now.