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There are three opinions why the rabbis instituted to wash our hands when we wake up in the morning:
1. We assume that during the night the hands touched the private (or sweaty) parts of the body, therefore they must be washed before we pray (Rosh, Brachos 9:23 and Rambam, Laws of Tefillah 4:1).2. Every morning when G-d returns the soul to the person, it is as if the person is created anew. We, therefore, have to sanctify ourselves before we start our service of G-d just like a kohen (priest - descendant of Aaron) in the holy Temple would wash his hands from the kiyor before his daily service (Shalos Utshuvos HaRashba vol. 1 ch. 191).3. According to Kabbalah, when the soul departs the body at night, the body is occupied by a ruach hatumah (spirit of impurity). When the person awakens and the soul returns the ruach hatumah leaves the entire body but remains in the hands until the wrists. The only way to remove this ruach hatumah is by washing netilat yadayim (Zohar Parshat Vayeshev 184b; also mentioned in the Talmud, Tractate Shabbat 109a).
According to the first reason it is unnecessary to have water poured onto the hands (according to the second opinion it is necessary that the water should come from a vessel - similar to the kiyor which was a vessel). And according to both of the first two reasons there certainly is no reason to wash our hands three times. However, the the only way to rid the hands of the ruach hatumah is by washing each hand three times intermittently.
There is a Torah commandment that when one has a harvest of wheat, wine or olive oil, a small percentage is given as Terumah (a "separation") to the kohen. Terumah must be kept pure and the kohen who eats it must be pure. Since a person's hands are active and might have come in contact with something unclean or impure, the kohen must wash his/her1 hands before consuming terumah. This applies only to bread; for olive oil and wine are not generally eaten directly with the hands.
In order to keep us ready for the time when we will once again be eating terumah - with the coming of our righteous Messiah, our rabbis instituted that all of us wash our hands before eating any bread.
The problem is that when washing hands to purify them, the hands become pure but the water becomes impure. We therefore pour water on the hands again in order to purify the first waters. For Chabad the custom is to pour water a third time just in case the second waters didn't reach all the first waters. There is no reason here to wash intermittently.
It is necessary to have the water poured from a vessel because (just like the washing of the morning) the rabbis compared this washing to the washing by the kiyor (or the water of the parah adumah which also required a vessel).
However, if you have a Kosher Mikvah (or river, stream, lake or ocean) you can dip your hands in there (once) and that is enough for eating bread. The morning washing, on the other hand, only works if water is poured on the hands three times intermittently, as mentioned earlier.
[Ed. note: you may also want to read: "Why do we wash our hands before eating bread?"]
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Daily Life » Waking Up
