Interior lights will not go off

The interior lights came on randomly when I hadn't driven my car in over 24 hours. I re-shut the doors and the trunk. I stepped back and watched the lights dim like they were going to turn off and then come back on as soon as they went off. This happened five times before I turned the light switch off on the main overhead interior light. All of the interior lights went off after that. The next day, the interior click-on lights over the dashboard were going on and off as I was driving. About a week later I left my car at an airport for a week and when I left, the lights were off inside of the car. When I got back, the interior click-on lights were on. The car started, but then when the car was driven back to school, the interior lights were flickering again. My car was parked at my apartment and left there during winter break (the lights were off when I left), but when I got back a little less than a month later, the battery in my car was 100% dead, so I'm assuming the lights came on again at some point during my break. So as of right now my car battery is dead and I haven't tried jumping it yet because I want to know if anyone has a clue what could be wrong with it before I take it into a car auto repair shop.