A friend of my father's was (in the dream) our maths professor at university or college. I'm in an advanced physics class, and there's an extremely difficult problem to solve. I was determined not to give up and to understand it. My friend Toby was also in the class and struggling too - I got the immersion he hadn't even grasped the first part. It may have been beyond me, but I didn't want to give up, or admit that I couldn't do it.