Last night was a good example of what a G1 geomagnetic storm will look like on a moonless night in NNE.
Faint, but visible if you're looking. They're never really reported or acknowledged because they're common, occurring on roughly 900 days each solar cycle.
Last night was somewhat noteworthy for a G1 in that the activity was weirdly high in the sky, meaning it was closer than normal. Also, as you noted the pulsing effect is a bit unexpected at such low activity levels. When I saw it, a small patch of sky would gradually get brighter over about 15 seconds and then abruptly fade out over about 2 seconds.