Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-24573226-20170121144613/@comment-26397825-20170122172842

I'm personally in the camp that his semblance both dulls emotions and makes the user harder to see/hear. Because Grimm still have eyes and ears to go with their empathetic senses.

But yeah, pretty much the special aura effect was him unlocking his aura through sheer determination to do something, and then his semblance activated due to his efforts of trying to calm down and did the job for him much faster than he could have without it.