IMac, external monitor flicker/blink blue

I have an external monitor hooked up to my iMac and I have had no problems until today. It's the mini-DVI to VGA style connector.
During the day, I jarred my desk with my knee. The iMac and external monitor both blinked about four times, becoming blue like in the startup process. The view on the external monitor also went fuzzy for a second. No CPU functions appear to have been affected.
I shut down, checked all the cable connections, and restarted. The problem seemed to be resolved - until later when I was using the computer, and the same thing happened twice in about two minutes. This time the desk hadn't moved at all. Again, no CPU functions appear to have been affected.
In the Console, I see these messages at the time of the events:
<Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSGetDisplayBounds (display 3e41b5b9)
kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSGetCurrentDisplayMode
kernel
EDID does not contain Extended EDID, not valid for audio
A search seems to indicate that it may be cable-related, which is the best-case scenario, and I'm hoping it's not the graphics card or logic board.
Can anything be done to stop this from reoccurring?

Now it appears the problem has gotten worse. Much worse.
I've had the external monitor disconnected for five days now. I tried to plug it back in and the computer did not recognize it AT ALL. Nothing showed up on the display.
In addition, or however, the mouse movement on the iMac itself became very, very unresponsive.
Once I disconnected the monitor, everything on the iMac was functioning normally.
Have I messed something up inside the iMac?

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