Screen Glitch - Programs open on inexistant workspace
 

Once in a while when I come back to my computer after it goes idle no programs will open. I believe they open to a workspace or monitor space which doesn't exist. I'm on a laptop, running Mint 15, with no external monitor. To fix it, I press control alt F1 and run startx. Can anyone explain what the fix I am using is for as I am new to Linux? And how I can prevent this from happening in the future?

See if hybernation or stand by is enabled under energy save configurations, hybernations is known to cause problems, and some other things been turned off may not behave as expected sometimes when supposed to turn back on.

Now when you run startx in the console you are probably running another instance of the GUI, then if you check the processes you will find that out. To confirm that type alt+f7 and then ctrl+alt+F1, to see if there are two GUI running.
By starting another GUI isn't really a solution just a work around.

Regards