I examine several poems written in the style of regulated poetry and one fu (rhapsody) composed by the seventeenth-century Chinese poet Dong Yue (1620–1686), including “On Dream Journey, Written for the Traveler Roaming around Five Lakes,” “Supplementing the Lines from a Dream,” and “Documenting a Dream from the Seventh Month.” These poems resulted from his active collaboration with his dreams (certain couplets in these poems were even produced within dreams). I attend to an analogy that Dong consistently drew: the process of literary writing is like that of dreaming. I suggest that this observation reflects the poet’s sensitivity towards the way in which literary creation enables virtuality. By choosing the theme of virtuality, I offer an interpretation of poetry’s ability to conjure up lifelike visions and imaginary experiences and to make them tangible, sharable, and in turn, real—a key aspect of poiesis as a transformative mechanism specific to literary writing.