Nightmares and Daydreams (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Template:Infobox Avatar: The Last Airbender episode Nightmares and Daydreams is an episode from the animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender, which airs on Nickelodeon. It is the ninth episode of the third season of the series.

Episode synopsis

The gang arrive on an island, which is where the entire invasion force will meet up. Aang is stressed about the invasion - which results in him having strange nightmares about facing the Fire Lord in a few days, like forgetting his pants before facing the Fire Lord, and forgetting to review for a non-existent math test administered by Ozai. The nightmares culminate with a jumbled montage, consisting of snap images expressing Aang's fear and stress over the upcoming battle. Because of this, he is not getting enough sleep, if any at all. Soon he starts having hallucinations, such as hearing Appa and Momo talking and battling each other in samurai armor, and a daydream in which he professes his love for Katara, and the two share a passionate kiss. He also tries to constantly 'train'. Katara, Toph and Sokka all try and help Aang using different methods - Katara tries yoga in an artificial hot spring, Toph gives him a brutal massage, and offers acupuncture with a porcupine when the massage fails, and Sokka dons his beard and mustache from The Headband and tries to be a psychiatrist. However, their methods all fail.

Meanwhile Zuko is enjoying his life of royalty and making the most of it while his relationship with Mai goes well. But later Azula receives a personal invitation to Fire Lord Ozai's war meeting - Zuko does not. This leads him to think that his father doesn't want him there. Eventually Zuko is told by servants of his father that everyone is waiting for him to arrive at the meeting, and they will not start until he is there. After the meeting, Zuko tells Mai that his father treated him like his right-hand man. But he confesses that although he acted like the perfect son, he was not being himself.

Aang finally finds a bed his friends made for him out of wool and believes it to be another hallucination. His friends inform him that it is indeed real and they spent hours working on it. Aang continues to insist he is not ready, but Katara and the rest of the gang encourage him with all the work they've done together, all the training and preparation. Their faith in him gives Aang peace enough to sleep. He dreams of Fire Lord Ozai once more - Ozai again tells him he has forgotten his pants, but Aang replies that in fact it is the Fire Lord who has forgotten his pants, and Fire Lord Ozai covers himself with a large Fire Nation emblem and shrieks in embarrassment that his "Royal Buttocks" are showing. Aang is now more confident for the invasion.

Trivia

• The picture of Firelord Ozai that Aang made from noodles in Book 3 Chapter 2, "The Headband" makes its return in this episode. It is what Aang uses as the Firelord for combat practice.
• Guru Pathik from Book 2 Chapter 19, "The Guru" appears during Appa and Momo's samurai-esque fight as part of the hallucination singing about chakras. His many arms is a reference to the Hindu deity Shiva.
• Momo and Appa's battle is reminiscent of the battles in the Usagi Yojimbo comic series.
• The outfit and hair Aang wears in his nightmares with Ozai are parodies of various other popular animes, including Dragon Ball Z.
• In one of Aangs nightmares, Zuko is shown with his hairstyle from season 1.
• Aang is shown performing a basic Ba Gua exercise - circle walking around the sheep and around Katara. Ba Gua is the martial art on which airbending is based.
• In the scene where Aang dreams about kissing Katara, she wears sandals at the beginning. They, however, disappear at certain times and are gone completely at the end.

Goofs

• When Aang first finds the bed at the end of the episode, it is in a figure 8 shape without the holes. When the episode ends with Aang sleeping soundly on the bed, the bed is perfectly circular.