Laptop LCD display brighter on right than left... going out???

Hardware: Acer Aspire 5735z
OS: Windows 7 Build 7600

I have noticed (intermittently) that my screen is brighter on the right than the left... I don't know how many of you have noticed the fade feature in Windows 7, but it's almost as if the screen is staying faded on the left, but I have a feeling that it's a hardware issue and not a software issue. Wow, and I just now noticed that it slowly faded back to normal (it took about 15 minutes)... What the helll is going on? Any ideas?