HELP! --desktop icons disappeared!

[itsJUSTangela]

earlier i encountered a problem and there's been some progress but i'm still worried since it's not the same.

i left my macbook idle, on for a few minutes. when i touched the track pad EVERYTHING on my desktop suddenly disappeared, even the MACINTOSH HD icon. although i was still able to search everything via finder i attempted to drag the MACINTOSH HD from finder to the desktop and it made the wooshing aka deleting sound, and was gone for a few minutes. during that time i was searching for it, i observed, via finder only, that practically all my icons were not in full color: they appear somewhat faded and transparent, but still present and capable of being launched. and suddenly a bunch of empty folders appeared with random names in the DOCUMENTS, APPLICATIONS, MUSIC folders etc (ie files ending with ".*insert name here* underneath/ beside the image icon of a blank word document such as ".DS_STORE" and ".localized"), also additional SERVERS and NETWORKS icons repeatedly appears on my desktop every time i click on the NETWORK icon or any network image icon with a different name.

i then attempted to highlight my entire desktop and then the icons reappeared and disappeared again within a few seconds and still retain the faded color. i guess it means the file is invisible??

all my files remain in tact... which is good.

whats wrong? what happened? how can i fix it?

PLEASE HELP!


FYI im using a macbook 13" 10.4.11