Simpsons and Freudian Dream Theory

S4 Ep14 Analysis

This episode begins with Bart waiting for Homer to pick him up from soccer practice.  Homer doesn't remember that he is supposed to pick Bart up, even though he feels like he's forgetting something.  Thus, the setting and events of the dream are entirely composed of Homer's daily residue of having forgotten about Bart.
The fact that Bart is dead in Homer's dream is an example of Thanatos, a wish for death or destruction.  Homer is experiencing an anxiety dream over a deeply repressed dislike of Bart, or of the responsibilities of parenthood.  Bart's death in the dream is an expression of Homer's wish to be rid of Bart, and this conflicts with Homer's love for his children and desire to be a good father.  That Bart is a skeleton rather than a corpse is a distortion of the repressed wish, as it further removes the events of the dream from real-life plausibility.  This dream indicates that Homer forgot that he was supposed to pick up Bart because he has repressed that information, along with his desire to be rid of Bart and his responsibilities as a parent.
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