A yacht alive with music and flashing lights waited for the long lines of eager people dressed in costume to board the Daybreaker Halloween event before the sun even broke.

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Bananas, princesses, sailors, fairies, and ninjas flooded the dance floor, fully equipped with DJs, a live band, photo booths, vats of coffee, tea, water, and tables full of snacks. While most dance parties end when the sun is rising, this one just gets started.

The “Infinity” took its 800 party-goers on a tour up and down the Hudson River with a view postcards are made of. Not a drop of alcohol was offered at any of the bars, yet everyone was drunk — on the music, the skyline’s sunrise, and each other. The disorienting sobriety was overwhelming and the feeling of unity was pulsing through the double decker dance floors.

If you took everyone from my yoga class, Burning Man, commuters down Wall Street, my lit class in college, Electric Zoo, and put them on a ship together, you’d have a Daybreaker’s 7 a.m. dance party.

“This is my first time,” Ricky Anderson, who was dressed as music artist Sia, told Medical Daily. "But Halloween is the best time to come because everyone is dressed up. There’s a certain vibe to it. It’s filled with all healthy foods and healthy beverages, and it really wakes you up. It makes you ready to start your day.”

A pink-wigged hoola hooper casually hooped by. It was easy to forget you woke up at 6 a.m. and were on a yacht filled with dancing, costume-wearing strangers.

The DJ shouted to the chorus of the song “Hydrate yourself. Drink water!” People danced with water bottles in place of vodka tonics as the sunrise poured light into the crowd, turning night into day. A live band of bongo, trumpet, and saxophone players took over the beat and paraded around the ship’s bow. They spilled out onto the dance floor collecting dancing followers as they weaved in and out the crowd.

My two co-workers and I watched in awe as walls dropped with the beat and strangers danced with each other without the need of alcohol to fuel their courage.

Suddenly, four giant jellyfish came bobbing to the beat onto the dance floor. People flocked beneath the tentacles and jumped along with the pole holders carrying the bodies of the fluorescent white sea creatures. Something about their presence made everyone throw their hands up in sober celebration as the DJ ramped up the music’s speed and the dancers followed suit.

“The beats are right, the people are right, the morning is right,” a man dressed as a bare-chested Santa, told Medical Daily.

When the DJ stepped down, a poet took his place and rehearsed verses from memory as the crowd cheered him on. The literature value added to the guys typing on old fashioned type writers alongside the dancers. They call themselves the Haiku Guys and will write a haiku with your topic of choice right on the spot. I chose sunrise and was surprised with a quick and captivating three-lined response: Sky curtain tearing// Where lady liberty stands// Ball of fire bursts.

The creative juices continued to flow as the reader was followed by a yoga instructor who smiled widely at her restless crowd just before she sat down in front of the disc jockey table. The mood of the room gave me whiplash as bumping house music was replaced by the soothing instructions of a meditation class. The floor, which just minutes before was filled with coursing energy and sweating bodies, now occupied quiet, attentive party-goers sitting Indian style still dressed in costume. “Be silent and breathe from deep within,” the instructor’s voice commanded the sea of bears, flamingos, skeletons, and cowboys. Each person responded with rising and falling chests, and closed eyelids. “Think of the person at the dry cleaners, at your coffee shop, and wish them well,” she cooed into the microphone after she reminded them they have the power to control their day set in front of them.

Burning Calories Before Sunrise: Dance-Party Style

According to a 2013 study, the workout and meditation session the attendees received will help them sleep better tonight. Exercising before work is proven to improve your health and sleep quality. So their non-exercising counterparts will have a hard time getting through a full cycle of sleep and end up waking less rested.

The number of calories burned will vary from person to person and depends on their weight and level of regular activity, but for most of the morning dancers, they burned 7 calories per minute.

After two hours of a Daybreaker dance party, the average person will burned 840 calories before they even clocked into work. But it went well beyond a workout and quickly turned into a tightly woven group of people looking for the same unanimity. Matt Brimer and Rodha Agrawal foresaw the need for an early morning sweat session by sunrise and created Daybreaker.

Brimer and Agrawal were on their way to a late-night party in Brooklyn when they decided it was time to throw the booze-less bash.

“They were like, we should throw a party in the morning and we’ll dance and all be sober,” Betty Day, who was there the day the idea was generated among friends, told Medical Daily. “The first one was so cool. We went down into this underground space where we danced our morning away. By the time it was over it had snowed, and then we started our day.”

Since then, they've had five more morning parties, including the Halloween-themed yacht event. These electronic musical mornings aren’t going to end there. The events are attracting attention from every corner of the city, and word of mouth is their greatest advertising asset. Nearly everyone we spoke to said they heard about it from their friend, boss, or, as a tour guide described it, “a must experience.”