27" iMac Powers Up - Black Display - Able To Use External Monitor

I have a strange problem, but I believe it's a software problem and maybe could get some help here before lugging it over to the apple store for the second time in 3 months.
- Today when I turned on my 2010 27" iMac it booted up, gave me the start up sound, my external hard drive turned on, fans were going, but the monitor remained off which never happens. The night before I hadn't done anything out of the ordinary like changing settings or installing anything.
- I tried turning up the brightness on the keyboard and that didn't work.
- I shined a flashlight into the screen to see if I could see a faint desktop as if the backlight had gone out, but saw nothing.
- I turned on my external Acer monitor and to my surprise my entire desktop was on that external monitor which I've never seen happen. It's almost like the computer knew the screen was dead and shifted everything over onto that monitor.
HERE'S WHERE IT GETS WEIRD....
- I put the computer to sleep. When I went to awake it from sleep I turned on the external monitor and to my surpise the iMac screen turned on as well, but my desktop was still located on the external monitor. It remains on. It doesn't flicker or turn off after 10 minutes, it remains on.
- I turned off the computer and did an SMC restart which I know is mostly BS for any of the other times I've had problems with the iMac. I figured it would not work and it didn't.
- I can get the iMac screen to come on, but ONLY after it wakes up from sleep, but it's still situating everything on the external monitor. It's as if the iMac is treating it's own screen as an external monitor.
So it's not that my graphics card is dead or my backlight burned out. It's just a matter of telling the computer to turn on the display.
If anyone can help me out I would greatly appreciate it!
- Joe

Tried to Safe Boot, didn't work.
Did one PRAM reset it didn't work. I'll try your suggestion of 3 in a row and see if that works.
I have a temporary solution on how to get the iMac display to work after freak luck:
1) Turn the computer on from being shut down. iMac display is dead. Ext. monitor works with my desktop on it.
2) Put the computer to sleep.
3) Wake the computer up from sleep, but make sure the external monitor is turned off. The iMac's monitor turns on, but the iMacs monitor is treated as an external monitor with nothing on it. I can only slide things over from the external monitor onto the iMac screen.
4) Restart the computer
5) Desktop and everything goes back and gets situated on the iMac display.
I can put it to sleep, but once I shut it down I have to start all over again. At this point my guess is a boot up issue. Because after the iMac screen does turn on from sleep and I restart it everything works fine. It's just getting the screen to come on when it boots up from shut down is the problem.
I will most likely be taking the iMac to the Apple Store. In some misplaced, weird way I get a kick out of it because everytime I bring a problem to them, they've never seen such a problem before, so with my luck they've probably never seen this before.
Thanks again for your help BDAqua!

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