$ _SESSION var表现得很奇怪

Lately I've encountered problems using the admin area of my website. It seemed there were session problems. To see what's going on with $_SESSION, I've created the following script:

<?
session_start();
mysql_connect("localhost", "USERNAME", "PASSWORD");
mysql_select_db("DATABASE_NAME");

if (isset($_SESSION)) {
    echo '<pre>session var:<br/>';
    var_dump($_SESSION);
    $perm = mysql_fetch_assoc(mysql_query("SELECT * FROM `perm_groups` WHERE `id` = '".$_SESSION['perm']."'"));
    echo '<br/><br/>permission var:<br/>';
    var_dump($perm);
    echo '</pre>';
} else {
    echo 'no session set';
}
?>

$_SESSION['perm'] should contain a numeric string refering to the ID of the permission-group i have ("1" -> "admin") After login I call the script manually and get this result:

session var:
array(4) {
  ["user"]=>
  &string(17) "sebastian.philipp"
  ["auth"]=>
  &bool(true)
  ["perm"]=>
  &string(1) "1"
  ["llog"]=>
  &string(19) "2013-08-21 09:48:38"
}


permission var:
array(7) {
  ["id"]=>
  string(1) "1"
  ["name"]=>
  string(4) "admin"
  ["create_pages"]=>
  string(1) "1"
  ["delete_pages"]=>
  string(1) "1"
  ["edit_pages"]=>
  string(1) "1"
  ["manage_users"]=>
  string(1) "1"
  ["manage_img"]=>
  string(1) "1"
}

When refreshing the page by pressing F5, it returns this result:

session var:
array(4) {
  ["user"]=>
  &string(17) "sebastian.philipp"
  ["auth"]=>
  &bool(true)
  ["perm"]=>
  &array(7) {
    ["id"]=>
    string(1) "1"
    ["name"]=>
    string(4) "admin"
    ["create_pages"]=>
    string(1) "1"
    ["delete_pages"]=>
    string(1) "1"
    ["edit_pages"]=>
    string(1) "1"
    ["manage_users"]=>
    string(1) "1"
    ["manage_img"]=>
    string(1) "1"
  }
  ["llog"]=>
  &string(19) "2013-08-21 09:48:38"
}


permission var:
bool(false)

And when refreshing again, it's like this:

session var:
array(4) {
  ["user"]=>
  &string(17) "sebastian.philipp"
  ["auth"]=>
  &bool(true)
  ["perm"]=>
  &bool(false)
  ["llog"]=>
  &string(19) "2013-08-21 09:48:38"
}


permission var:
bool(false)

So it semms like $perm gets written to $_SESSION['perm'], which shouldn't happen.

What am I doing wrong?

What's your PHP version? It sounds like register_globals is activated and it shouldn't be.