FATAL: Sorry, too many clients already????

I have a server under very light load -- just me doing some work in php.
I am getting this error often and don't know why:

postgresql max connections Unable to connect to PostgreSQL server:
FATAL: Sorry, too many clients already

my orignal postgresql.conf had:

max_connections = 8
shared_buffers = 16

I changed those to 32 and 64 and it is working so far. But I have a
bunch of postgresses running now with all of them doing almost nothing:

postgres 11747 0.0 0.0 8612 1904 ? S 00:27 0:00 postgres:
stats buffer process
postgres 11778 0.0 0.0 7620 1928 ? S 00:27 0:00 postgres:
stats collector process
postgres 12950 0.0 0.0 9132 4300 ? S 00:27 0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres 13152 0.0 0.0 8436 3748 ? S 00:27 0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres 13216 0.0 0.0 8436 3644 ? S 00:27 0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres 13410 0.0 0.0 8036 2952 ? S 00:27 0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres 13474 0.0 0.0 8436 3940 ? S 00:27 0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres 13664 0.0 0.0 8420 3796 ? S 00:27 0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres 13824 0.0 0.0 8040 3024 ? S 00:27 0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres 13890 0.0 0.0 8436 3984 ? S 00:27 0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres 2466 0.0 0.0 8432 3764 ? S 00:31 0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres 2535 0.0 0.0 8568 3960 ? S 00:31 0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle
postgres 19026 0.0 0.0 8040 2940 ? S 01:11 0:00 postgres:
dcm1104_root mkim_org 127.0.0.1 idle

i have tried both pg_connect and pg_pconnect, and this happens either
way. I don't understand why it keeps starting more processes when there
are others sitting around doing nothing??? Any thoughts? I am
tired...Maybe I'm missing something obvious....

Thanks

Dan