Laptop screen flickered black and white while shutting down

[MysticalChicken]

While shutting down my laptop before going to bed last night (technically this morning, heh), after I had hit Start then Shut Down, before the window (or whatever it's called) came up asking if I wanted to restart, shut down, or stand by, my monitor started flickering black, then it went back to normal, then it sloooowly faded to white, then back to normal, then flickered black again, and repeated like that--black, normal, white, normal--until the unit was shut down. While the screen was fading to white (seemed to be one pixel at a time, unlike the black which was a very quick flicker, but sometimes lasting 2-3 seconds) I could not move the mouse or do anything else until it "darkened" back to normal. Except for this monitor snafu, the system shut down normally. Also, when starting it up yesterday, before Windows even loaded the monitor started fading white and back to normal again, back and forth like that, and I was able to get to the login screen and log in, but it kept whiting out and I had to shut it down and start over again (no problems the second time). I haven't had any problems with it yet today (knock wood), but I've googled and I've come across people who have either the flickering or the fading-to-white screen, but not both. Anyone know what the problem could be? I hope my monitor isn't dying, I can't afford a new one. Oh, and the fading-to-white thing also happened to me about a year ago, but it went away on its own after a few weeks, and just came back again yesterday after about 12-14 months.