$_SESSION v. Cookies

Dear PHP List, PHP 5, Apache2, MySQL 5, running on Ubuntu, viewing & deving with FireFox and Konqueror (Linux). I am building a site with multiple tools and want to pass variables throughout them all. Before, I was passing variables using <hidden> HTML Form tags, but the site has grown too large for this tactic, so I went to using $_SESSION. However, when I started using $_SESSION, my site loads 3-5 times slower then before. A page that queried MySQL and built itself in 3-5 seconds was now taking 15-20. While more has changed then just $_SESSION, it is really the only significant difference. Is $_SESSION slowing down my site? Is there a faster alternative to global variables then using $_SESSION? Are using regular cookies faster? Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Scott -- Scott Campbell "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten." "Courage is resistance to fear .. not absence of fear."