Is an epileptic aura a warning before the seizure, or the seizure itself? · Grey Matter

It is the seizure itself, at its start: a focal seizure with awareness kept, small enough to be felt and remembered and not yet large enough to show to an observer.

Is an epileptic aura a warning before the seizure, or the seizure itself?

It is the seizure itself, at its start: a focal seizure with awareness kept, small enough to be felt and remembered and not yet large enough to show to an observer. Its content reveals where it begins, such as coloured lights in the occipital lobe, a rising feeling from the stomach or déjà vu in the mesial temporal lobe, and a tingle in one hand in the sensory strip. Sometimes it stays that size and ends; sometimes it spreads, awareness is lost, and it may become a convulsive seizure, so the aura is both the first sign and a guide to where the seizures start.