random restart and inexplicable Activity Monitor problem--need help

A bit earlier, my MBP inexplicably restarted on me after I closed the lid, a few seconds elapsing between the time I put it down and walked a few feet away and then heard the chime. When OS X was back up, I noticed that the temperature had somehow spiked to about 150+ degrees F, which somehow happened in the space of a few minutes of little real usage (and while set to max energy savings).

Also, Activity Monitor is not showing me any processes, no matter what I do. It's just blank. No program usage or any changes can make it show a single process. It was fine yesterday.

Any help?

I just created another user account to see if I would encounter the same problem with a fresh account, and it turns out that I can see the normal processes with activity monitor in the new account.

What's that mean and what can I do with it?

My MBP really seems to be suddenly running much hotter than usual, with no apparent change in usage.

i seem to have solved the immediate problem by fiddling around in activity monitor and having it show the processes be heirarchy. That triggered everything else to start working, it seems.

Still doesn't explain the sudden heating up or shutdown, though.

My usual application is safari, and I guess that's about it on an always-running basis. Earthdesk is running too, though.

Can't say I do. But, I was networked with my iBook via my router, and I didn't shut that down until after the above-mentioned trouble. Could that be related to what happened?

Thanks for the help .

Thank you for the heads up on that. Unfortunately, I ran a 3rd party maintenance application, and it deleted that log. Otherwise, it looks like it would have been helpful to see.